American Goldfinch Female

I told you yesterday about the American Goldfinch. There was one thing missing from my story though. I didn't really give you any pictures of the female. We usually only think of human females as being unjustly thought of as second to the males. But what about birds?

It seems as if male birds get most of the attention. For example, male peacocks with their big beautiful tail feathers get far more attention than the females, simply because the female's tail feathers aren't as noticeable. A male downy woodpecker has a fancy bright red cap, but the female has none.

Now we have the American Goldfinch. What are the differences? The male has a dashing black Zorro mask on its head. The female has no mask, so her face is open for all to see. It's as yellow as the rest of her. The color of the female is also a bit duller, more of an olive color. She also lacks yellow shoulder bars that the male has.

Okay, enough of this! There is one thing the female has that the male lacks. She was kind enough to give me my first good pictures of a goldfinch. The pictures you see here are actually much older than the ones I showed you yesterday. I waited with these so I could give you the information about these American Goldfinches in the proper way.

I got these pictures after chasing a male goldfinch from the lake to the meadow in this nature park. I told you that story a little while ago, and I mentioned then that it was unfinished. I did get some decent pictures, but they weren't quite what I wanted. It's what happened after I lost him that made me really happy.

The male goldfinch flew to an old fallen tree, but I still couldn't get a clear shot. I thought I was going to go away with nothing again, but patiently sitting there on a high branch was another bird. It looked different than the first one. As you may have guessed, it was this female American Goldfinch.

She stayed perched on that branch the whole time, letting me take all the pictures of her that I wanted. Some might just obnoxiously say it was female vanity for the camera, but I say it was female kindness that enabled her to show me a little bit of mercy. I didn't know it was a female at the time; I only knew it was the little yellow bird I always wanted.