#Lesser goldfinch

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Lesser Goldfinch

Photo: Mick Thompson

"Very common in parts of the West, this tiny finch is easy to overlook until one learns its chiming and twittering callnotes. Small flocks of Lesser Goldfinches are often found feeding in weedy fields or in streamside trees. Two color patterns occur in the United States, and males in some areas may be either green-backed or black-backed. The complicated song of the male usually includes short imitations of the voices of other birds."

- Audubon Field Guide

[forestviewfinder]

Lesser goldfinches from this morning!

[spinus-pinus]

Lesser Goldfinch Spinus psaltria

2/4/2023 Orange County, California

[pinyonrice]

Oh look at you! You came out perfect, just perfect!

[dkt5d]

Lesser Goldfinch's in the rain. SoCal February 1, 2024.

[pinkbirddiaries]

Lesser Goldfinch, House Finch, House Sparrow

You can hear my birds losing their minds in the background. Ozzie near the end says Kiwi which is my moms dog

[sebring5]

_DSF6389 by Henry Via Flickr: Lesser goldfinch

[tinylongwing]

Trick or treat!! 🪶 🐦

E. melanorhynchus?? Shoot, if only I had one of those in here! But I've never banded one, alas. Instead, please enjoy this immature male Lesser Goldfinch I captured at the Southern Sierra Research Station back in 2017 when teaching a bird banding class.

He's a fantastic example of what's called a "molt limit" - differences in generations of feathers on the same bird, often very helpful in determining the age. This little guy hatched that summer and is almost done with replacing his greater coverts, tertials, and outermost primaries with black formative feathers - but the juvenile ones are still very brown. And check out how much more white is at the base of those formative primaries (the four on the right side) compared to the juvenile ones, which are browner and have a lot less white!

[1gave-up]

Is it wrong to have beef with two entire species of birds that are most likely not deliberately antagonizing me? Birds that allegedly have little to no knowledge of my existence? Bird the probably have no control over the fact that they are bright yellow, and live in green trees, and have a call just distinctive enough to give me hope, yet oh so similar to the most common song bird around!? Yet someone I only see them in fleeting glances. The whisper of a tail as it flys from a tree, or the hint of a yellow chest as it flys into dense foliage!

Is it so wrong even if these birds really do have no concept of the agony they cause? Is it so wrong!?

[forestviewfinder]

I managed to get a couple of somewhat decent photos through my upstairs window <3

[condorphoto]

Lesser Goldfinch Spinus psaltria

[spinus-pinus]

Lesser Goldfinch Spinus psaltria

2/4/2023 Orange County, California

[insipid-drivel]

Behold: This spoiled-ass bird

He naps in the birdseed until I start to refill the pan he's sleeping in. I was worried when I first noticed him, so I've already had a specialist come out to look - she's a neighbor and could easily walk over and see him herself, so I never had to stress him by trying to trap him. All she had to say was that he's very young lesser goldfinch (he's still shedding his baby nestling down in some spots) and probably has spent his entire short life watching me refill the feeders, while using the path from the thicket to the seed pans as practice as he continues to get better at flying longer distances. The gunk in his mouth in the picture is literally just millet he'd been snacking on in the middle of getting this picture. His beak is otherwise always very healthy-looking with no strange buildup or signs of damage.

Since he's always skrunkly and has the brass balls of an ancient fey, I have dubbed him... Skrunklestiltskin.

[roadtrippinlilly]

Lesser Goldfinch...

Source Me laf@ilyF ❤️

[sebring5]

DSCF3398 by Henry Via Flickr: Woodpecker

[proton-wobbler]

Lesser Goldfinch - (Spinus psaltria)

Rio Grande Nature Center (State Park) - Fall 2023

When a species has a name like "Lesser" or "Greater", that refers to the size of the bird within the entire genus or family. "Lesser" birds are usually the smallest of a group, while "Greater" are the largest. These Lesser Goldfinch (also called LEGO) truly got me to see that- they're absolutely tiny compared to other finches.

Pictured are a male and female, both in their hatch year. Unlike most North American songbirds, LEGO will molt their flight feathers within their hatch year, and the limits between older, juvenile feathers and fresher plumage can be seen in both of these birds.

All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey's BBL. Permission to share these images was given by Rio Grande Bird Research, Inc. (Instagram: @ birdbanderdude_nm)