What birds?

I have received some comments and emails about my previous bird feeding post. Yes, I know I'm an old man in a younger man's body. Unfortunately, my body is slowly catching up, haha, but that's the way it goes. Due to what seems to be interest from several of you, I thought I would do a follow up for those of you who have feeders set up for the gold finches and haven't had any luck. My best advice is patience. Honestly, I have never set one up and not had the finches show up within a few weeks. Some years, there aren't as many as other years but this year is a good year, so once they find you, you should get some good viewing opportunities!

A few things you may try....set up a regular bird feeder with either black oil sunflower seed (cheapest at Tractor Supply in 50lb bags for $20) or regular wild bird seed mix which can be found for less than $10 almost anywhere. My theory on this is that it attracts the more common birds to your yard which in turn, can help get the attention of the little goldfinches. Also, the sunflower seed will attract birds such as cardinals, chickadees, house finches, and the tufted titmouse, in addition to the regular sparrows and doves that inevitably show up by the 100's.

Very important for finch feeding is that you are using only the nyjer seed, also known as thistle. This is what they eat. I have never seen one on my regular feeder for more than a moment.

Also, as I mentioned in my original post, tie some bright, yellow ribbon onto your goldfinch feeder to help attract the goldfinches as well. Anything that you can do to make the feeder more visible to them will help. Yellow is their natural color and they are therefore, attracted to it so the more yellow you have in the feeder area, the better, in my opinion.

If all of this fails, I don't know what else to recommend besides waiting. I figure we still have at least another month of goldfinches left before they migrate back to the north. They usually just disappear all at once, and all of a sudden. Currently, I am regularly seeing 4 - 6 on my feeder at a time, throughout the day.

Hang in there, don't fret, they're out there and it just takes time for them to find you. Enjoy them when they show up.