This doesn't shock me after something I witnessed last year. We seemed to catch the "great goldfinch migration" with literally 40 to 50 finches in our yard during a 1 day period (our normal summer finch activity is 4 to 5 mating pairs of goldfinches and a few house finches). The goldfinches certainly swarmed the finch feeder, but the really weird behavior was how they all lined up at the border between the street and our yard in order to eat dandelion greens. To this day, I hay no idea why they were eating dandelion greens, but there is no question that is what most of the "flock" was doing. But eating chard leaves wouldn't surpise me.

Jean, I am in Dawsonville. I have posted to my neighborhood news, told the local bird supply store which I am sure thrills them no end and not something they want to advertise, told my HOA board. I was sort of peeved because they made a joke of it and wondered if the birds had "gotten into some of those bad peanuts". Not funny. I have found a lot of dead birds as I am in the woods often and know where they roost. In one spot where the juncos roost there were dead juncos all over the ground. I have 4 juncos out of a zillion left, 2 siskens and 1 goldfinch. I tried to tell the neighborhood as nicely as possible to keep an eye on personal pets, it's contagious, children should not pick up dead birds, and gee, we should have major bug issues this summer if our insect eating permanent resident birds get killed. They are nice people but they just don't get that everything ties together. It's a non-issue to them and I am just the crazy wildlife lady who gets a pat on the head. I'm actually fairly middle class normal. I don't know what else to do. I'm not even some ecology wildlife fanatic, just a woman who grew up in deep woods. I guess it's part of my upbringing to be aware of nature and I just don't understand the blase attitude. Then they open the door and let their cat out. I don't mean to rant, it's just sad to me.

Beautiful birds that are very much at home in your yard garden. Lucky you and great video! :)

Lessers are birds of the west. We had both lessers and American goldfinches (as well as pine siskins, another Spinus species) in Colorado, though the lessers were by far more common. Here in Arizona I have yet to see any American goldfinches. California, and to a smaller extent, Arizona, has the fourth and final American Spinus finch, the Lawrence's goldfinch, which I have been searching for in vain all winter. Albert, where are you located? In the northern part of their range lesser goldfinches tend to be much less common in winter and to see a flock of 25 is not only very neat at this time of year, but something that I would report to places like Cornell Lab (via ebird) so they can either get a better picture of this species range and migration habits or see how it may be changing over time.