Birdcraft/Spinus tristis

by Mabel Osgood Wright

Plate 28. 1. Snowflake. Length, 7 inches. 2. American Goldfinch. Length, 5 inches.

American Goldfinch: Spinus tristis

Wild Canary, Thistle-bird, Yellowbird.

Plate 28. No. 2.

Length

4.80—5.20 inches.

Male

Body, all but wings, tail, and frontlet. a clear gamboge-yellow. Frontlet black. Wings black, varied with white. Tail blackish with spots of white on interior of quills. Bill and feet flesh-coloured. In September the black frontlet of the male disappears, his colours pale, and he resembles the female and young. In April the spring moult begins, and often is not completed until middle May.

Female

Above brownish olive, below yellowish.

Song

A wild, sweet, Canary-like warming. Call note, “Ker—chee-chee-chee, whew-é, whew-é!”

Season

Resident in this section, but the numbers increase in May and diminish in October.

Breeds

Sonthward to the middle districts of the United States (to about the Potomac and Ohio rivers, Kansas, and California).

Nest

Round, very neat, and compact; of grass and moss, lined with seed and plant down, usually in a branch crotch.

Eggs

4—6, blue-white. generally unmarked.

Range

North America generally, wintering mostly south of the northern boundary of the United States.

The American Goldfinch, known under many titles, is as familiar as the Robin, Catbird, and Wren, but its beauty and winning ways always seem new and interesting. In southern Connecticut, as well as in locations further north and east, it is resident, and is revealed through its various disguises of plumage by its typical dipping flight.

Its spring song begins early in April, though its plumage does not resume the perfect yellow until late May; the song remains at its height all through July and well into August, but ceases, almost abruptly, at the end of that month (from the 20, to the 30, according to Mr. Bicknell).

These Goldfinches do not mate until June, and sometimes not until the last half of the month. They always choose for their nesting-place some large maples that grow by the southwest wall of the garden, extending their branches over a waste field, where dandelions, thistles, Wild asters, and goldenrod hold sway. A little before this time flocks of birds assemble about the garden and every Jack chooses his Jill, or vice versa. There is no more cheerful and confiding garden companion than this Goldfinch. Seen even at a distance his markings are distinct, his identity complete; you do not have to puzzle or worry, but simply enjoy his society; he does not wish your berries, but helps you remove the dandelion down from the lawn before the wind sows it broadcast, and all the while you hear Canary-like music, but wilder and more joyous, from behind a twig lattice instead of cage bars.

The black cap gives the male a ferocious look, wholly at variance with his character, while his mate is agreeably feminine and gentle. These birds combine the rich colours, which we associate with the tropics, and the stout-hearted, cold-enduring New England nature, softened by the most agreeably cosmopolitan manners. If you wish them to live with you and honour your trees with their nests, plant sunflowers in your garden, zinnias, and coreopsis; leave a bit of wild grass somewhere about With its mass of composite. Coax the wild clematis everywhere that it can gain footing; and in winter, when these joyous birds, gathered in flocks, are roving, hard-pressed for food, scatter some sweepings of bird seed about their haunts, repaying in this their silent season, their summer melody.