Our friend, Lisa, gave us a "thistle sock" bird feeder. We never had one before. We filled it with thistle seed and hung it on a tree in our back yard and waited and waited. It is supposed to attract finches but none ever came. In fact, it just hung there idly for weeks and weeks. Finally, we decided, after a squirrel or the wind knocked it to the ground, it was time to either give up or try another location. Deb moved it to our cherry tree in the front yard. There was still no activity for the longest time, then one day, amazingly, finches showed up. I tried to take some photos of them through the window, but the results were not satisfactory. Then the finches disappeared for several more days. Finally, they returned. This time I was able to capture a few photos with my telephoto lens from just outside the front door, after tiptoeing outside as quietly as possible.
Finches are quite small birds, and ours seem very timid; at least from my experience they disappear quickly the moment they detect a human even some twenty feet away.
You can see the growing cherries, orange (not yet red), in the background of both of these photos. Though cherries are popular among many other larger bird visitors such as blue jays and robins, these small finches prefer thistle seed.
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| Bashful Goldfinch |
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