In my garden they also eat goldsturm black-eyed susans, plains coreopsis (mahogany red and yellow) which seems to be the absolute favorite, and salvia - farinacea and lady in red. It is really fun to watch them on the black-eyed susans if you are close enough to tell the birds from the flowers. They perch high on the stem and rip the petals out of the flower head to get at the seed. I know I have had a lot of finches I missed seeing when I have a patch of bare black eyes with no yellow petals. We had squirrels and then mice under the feeder so the seed-producing flowers works better here.

Hi everybody, and thanks! I love the gold finches! But boy it costs to feed them (they only like thistle seeds, which I buy in big bags!). They are a joy to watch though. Laura, sorry to hear about your seedpods that fell off. But your son's Lab should be innocent until proven guilty, right? Have you found out who dunnit? If it was him, I can't imagine the look on his face when he gets reprimanded! A few months ago I got so excited about my J105 tiny seedpods, but they fell off and I was so bummed. But in my case, I think they were too tiny and not strong enough to hang on. So now I try not to get excited unless the seedpods are about 1/4 inch or more, and so far, no other seedpods to be seen on the J105 even though it is still blooming. Jen: You're right, I do have a good population of thrips crawling in my plumeria flowers, which probably explains the number of seedpods I'm getting. I'm so lucky that they are not the harmful kind of thrips, because I don't see any damages to the plants.

Thank you all, Donna, you can have some of our lesser goldfinches, we have plenty of them :) They are noisey little guys. Years ago my mother told me I didn't have to feed them in the winter as they 'went somewhere else'. Well, they do. If you don't feed them they go to the neighbor who does. We just love them. On the orange House Finch, DH was insistant that's what it was but he was calling it a 'faded' House Finch :) And a question on the warbler. A warbler is more 'flitty' and more apt to be on the ground etc not holding still, right? Plus this guy was on the suet cake, not on the thistle sock. So I'll label him as a Yellow-rumped Warbler. We did get alot of blurry pix of him, REALLY blurry, but one did appear to show him with a pointed beak, not a 'finch' beak. Just couldn't really be sure. I'll still try for a better pic. Thank you so much!

Stunning picture! I love seeing those birds.