Finally figured out the trick to getting goldfinches to show up at my feeder

I've been trying to attract goldfinches to my backyard for like 3 months now. I had the standard nyjer feeder but they just ignored it completely. Last week I noticed a patch of wild sunflowers growing by my fence and saw a bunch of them picking at the seeds. So I grabbed a finch feeder that holds whole black oil sunflower seeds instead of just nyjer. Swapped it out last Tuesday at dawn and within 10 minutes I had 4 goldfinches going at it. I guess they just didn't like the tiny seed tube setup I had before. Has anyone else had better luck with certain feeder styles over others?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_faith5d ago

Did you try mixing a little bit of sunflower hearts in with the nyjer at first? A buddy of mine had the same issue, once he sprinkled some hearts on the ground near the feeder they eventually checked out the tube.

claire_hart535d ago

Funny you mention that, I used to swear by the nyjer tubes too. Thought goldfinches were picky little things that only wanted the tiny seeds. But after watching them ignore my feeder for weeks and then swarm a neighbor's sunflower stalk, I swapped to a mesh feeder with whole black oil seeds. Now I get a dozen of them every morning. The tube thing is totally overrated for these birds.

phoenixb345d ago

Took me two months of nyjer tube failure before I switched to a platform feeder with sunflower chips and boom, instant goldfinches.