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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Original poster

How can I get Goldfinches into my garden?

43 replies

SongThrushFeather · 10/06/2023 20:00

I know they are around. We occasionally see them and they come up all the time on my Merlin app.
We live in the countryside and (apart from our 3 neighbours) are surrounded by fields. Neither us or our neighbours have cats or dogs.
We have a tree with a bird feeder in. It gets robins, blackbirds, house sparrows and dunnocks. Next to it, on the same branch, about 2 weeks ago, I have put a special Niger seed feeder. The seed is fresh (or it was 2 weeks ago).
How can I get the Goldfinches to come/why won’t they come? Any ideas?

OP posts:
bloodywhitecat · 10/06/2023 20:02

Mine completely ignore the Niger seed and make a beeline for the sunflower hearts. They also seem to favour the feeders that are well sheltered by a large, leafy shrub.

Trinity69 · 10/06/2023 20:02

I’m following this with interest. We had some a few years ago and they’re beautiful. Hadn’t seen any for a while and spotted one having a full on row with a sparrow on my neighbours drive just last week. The Niger seeds are out in their special feeder. I assumed my dog was scaring them away.

IrmaBunt · 10/06/2023 20:02

In my garden they turn their noses up at niger seeds but love sunflower hearts. Do you already have those in your feeders?

IrmaBunt · 10/06/2023 20:03

Ha! Cross-post with BloodyWhiteCat.

DoorHandle2 · 10/06/2023 20:03

Have you tried providing a variety of foods? Also do you provide water? Ours love the ground and mid small bird baths.

PipsM · 10/06/2023 20:03

We have loads and also feed them sunflower hearts! Good luck!

BCSurvivor · 10/06/2023 20:04

Definitely sunflower hearts.
Goldfinches are so pretty!

lunar1 · 10/06/2023 20:04

My hedge is full of them, they love hawthorn.

napody · 10/06/2023 20:05

They love thistle and artichoke seed heads and teasels

megletthesecond · 10/06/2023 20:06

Teasles.
They are a beast of a plant but they're easy to control as they take 2 years to flower and aren't exactly subtle when they pop up. Just leave the dry flower heads up until the following spring.

NeverendingCircus · 10/06/2023 20:08

DH always leaves up the seed heads of flowers growing in the garden that have finished blooming, rather than deadheading them. The goldfinches seem to massively prefer these to any bird-feeders.

Halsall · 10/06/2023 20:14

We’ve got two niger seed feeders and I think we must be supporting the county’s entire population of goldfinches! We fill them up almost every day. In fact I’m looking at two of them sitting on one of the feeders now and thinking I need to fill it up again.

They do like a bit of wildness in a garden, I think (that my excuse) so I’d agree, leave seedheads where they are and don’t clear up too thoroughly.

Crimsonripple · 10/06/2023 20:16

Another vote for a sunflower hearts. I had about 8 at once on my feeder. Made my day!

recsw · 10/06/2023 20:17

We've put in a mini pond made from an old sink, it had attracted a lot of birds

crabbyoldappletree · 10/06/2023 20:19

Very occasionally we get them, they ignore the birdseed, but go for the dandelion seed....problem is dh, is a bit of a mowing fanatic so the dandelions often get mown before they've produced seed.

Geminio · 10/06/2023 20:23

The ones that visit our garden love the seed heads of verbena bonariensis.
They won’t go anywhere near the niger seed feeder we bought especially for them 🤷🏻‍♀️

CheeseandTrees · 10/06/2023 20:24

Mine eat the nyjer seeds but they swoop in and then take them to the neighbours' silver birch tree. They spend most of the day in the silver birch so I'm planting one in my next garden.

PetronellaOsgood · 10/06/2023 20:26

Definitely sunflower hearts and a water source. Also a large tree for them to congregate in helps 😂 I love them, we have had up to about 40 in our garden, the adults bring the fledglings at this time of year and there really is nothing nicer. A flock of goldfinches is called a ' charm' which I think suits them perfectly.

popgoesperfection · 10/06/2023 20:47

definitely sunflower hearts in our garden

Original poster
SongThrushFeather · 10/06/2023 20:50

Thanks for all the great ideas.
I will definitely get some sunflower seeds. We do have areas of the garden that we don’t mow. I can plant some teezles there.
No pond because DH worries about mosquitoes.
I put out water, but these last few days it has evaporated. I will make a point of topping it up.

OP posts:
Original poster
SongThrushFeather · 10/06/2023 20:51

I am also growing some sunflower seedlings. I will make a point of leaving them rather than cutting them down.

OP posts:
crabbyoldappletree · 10/06/2023 20:59

If you put in a good sized pond, you could have a couple of fish who will eat the mozzi larvae, newts and dragon fly nymphs will also eat larvae.

EmmaStone · 10/06/2023 21:03

We had to move the Niger seed feeder to a separate area, away from the other feeders to attract them. They've never been interested in the sunflower hearts (but all the other birds seem to love them, at the moment we're refilling the feeder every other day). Green finches especially hang out most of the day stuffing their beaks 😀

user1471556818 · 10/06/2023 21:06

Sunflowers hearts are the favourite will eat some Niger seeds just ro keep me on my toes
They were incredibly shy to begin with but now have up to 15 at a time coming into the garden
They are messy eaters and do drop a lot of seed but I adore them
Good luck

bigbella26 · 10/06/2023 21:19

Agree with earlier posters. I have both niger seeds and sunflower hearts out and they always devour the sunflowers. Occasionally see them on the niger feeder. I get lots of Greenfinches too.