riversurf, if you would like to prolong Rudbeckia's blooming season, I would like to suggest that you add R. triloba to your garden. It is a biennial and the last Rudbeckia to bloom in my garden and lasts until September. Mind you, R. triloba reseeds most prolifically for me. This Rudbeckia is much taller with flowers much smaller than any other R. If you would like to try it, I will save some seeds for you. I cut off 'Goldsturm' spent blooms because I don't want anymore 'Goldsturm' in my garden, but leave R. hirta alone until the seedheads are completely dry, they I snap them off and spread them all over my garden. Their bright face always cheers me up every summer. Funny you should say that goldfinches would eat green Echinacea seeds, debarron. I just saw a little yellow finch fly off my full bloom Echinacea yesterday. I didn't realize they would eat fresh seeds. I never had any Echinacea seeds to spread around anyway because goldfinches do the job for me. I have Echinacea seedlings coming up everywhere in my garden.

I was standing at the kitchen sink maybe 3 feet from the bird. I used the zoom on macro. Never used macro on zoom, but figured if it zooms you in close, you need it.. no blurriness this time. I need to keep my window clean though! Yesterday, we had the house finches, White Crowned Sparrows and the Goldfinches all at the feeder. Couldn't get a good shot because of shadows.

Normally House Finches winter over in this area but for reasons known only to the birds, they all disappeared in early December and are just now starting to return. According to the state Audubon Society Purple Finches winter here but they are cyclical. About once every decade we see an over abundance of them, but generally they are rare and in some years totally absent. I went back and did some additional research on the House Finch. It appears that they are really a non-native species that were originally kept as cage birds. A small number of them were accidentally released on Long Island,N.Y. in 1940 and they first appeared here in Ohio in 1964. By 1980 they had spread across the entire state of Ohio and have established a very successful breeding ground here. What I found most interesting in my research is the fact that the railroads are attributed with the wide spread of both House Finches and the European House Sparrow. Both species were initially released in the New York area. Having been introduced into an urban habitat they were initially unfamiliar with the local flora and fauna, and therefore relied heavily upon man made food sources. It is believed that many initially found the most abundant sources of food near warehouses or food processing plants where grain or other foodstuffs gets spilled from railroad cars during the loading and unloading process. Some of the birds were inadvertently closed up in the railroad cars when the doors were closed and they were transported to distant cities before the cars were opened again. This accounts for why their is an abundance of these birds in urban areas while they are often considered rare in rural areas.

Hi! Your feeder is neat, especially the way you've hung the tray on the bottom. The only thing I can think of, relative to your question about why birds aren't using that feeder, is that at this time of year it's not the feeder - there are so many insects, seeds, buds, etc. out there that haven't been available to the birds before spring, and I know that's where most of our birds are getting their nourishment. Even the gray catbirds that have been in the garden and birdbath haven't been visiting our fruit/jelly feeder. I've actually taken everything down except the nyjer feeder, and I keep the birdbaths filled and clean because all the birds come to those no matter what. On the other hand, we have a pair of goldfinches that visits our nyjer feeder every day at about 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., like clockwork. And more goldfinches than just those two take advantage of the feeder as well. So that feeder will stay up. This will work out - you could leave your feeder up and wait and see, birds may suddenly see it and use it. Good luck - Donna