How can I get Goldfinches into my garden?

[SongThrushFeather]

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?

In our garden they took several months to find the niger seed feeder. Having found that they were happy to eat from both that and the main feeders. We don't see them so much at this time of year though - late autumn to spring they hang around the feeders, but from now to mid autumn they prefer wild foraging.

But what they really loved last winter was the evening primrose, which we left standing after it went to seed. They were on it constantly, often 5 or 6 at a time, right through to February.

They love a meadow.

The goldfinches round here sit on the lawn in families eating the seeds from dandelion clocks. Another few weeks and it will be thistle heads, then teasels in the autumn.

They seem to much prefer seed heads on flowers in my garden rather than seeds in feeders. They particularly seem to like Verbena Bonariensis seeds and will come down in flocks and sit all over the plants eating like mad.

yes they love the feeders that have sunflower hearts in them. I do love to look at them it took about 2 weeks before any appeared at my feeders though.

Mine LOVE the sunflower hearts!

It’s so strange, nothing will touch sunflower hearts in my garden - we buy loads of normal sunflower seeds and the tits and nuthatches love those, but nobody likes the hearts 🤷‍♀️

Ours cost us a fortune in sunflower hearts. We have Niger seed too but not much gets eaten.

Mine love the niger seed, I can have a whole little flock of four on the feeder.

They spill lots more than they eat, and the pigeons lurk under the feeder. They are eating me out of house and home, but I don't mind, they look so pretty.

Ours only seem to come in the summer, and I saw my first 5 of the year just the other day. They don't seem to each much in my garden, but we get loads of them in the pond having a bath when it's warm. I think we counted 11 all at once last summer - they made a right mess 😁

They like lavender seed too. I don’t dead head till spring

Do you have any high trees in or near your garden? I’ve noticed that my goldfinches generally don’t go straight for the feeders, but land in my neighbours’ tree first to have a good look at what’s around. I have a lot of cats that visit my garden though, so that may be a factor in this behaviour.

It’s taken me a few years to attract goldfinches, even though I’ve had exactly the same food out for years. Then one day, a single goldfinch appeared. The next day, it brought over an entire flock and they were soon followed by all sorts of different finches. I even get redpoll in winter now as well as siskins, bull finches, green finches etc. So if they don’t come straight away, persevere!

(in my garden goldfinches prefer nyjer, but it was sunflower seed that brought them in initially, as well as a massive cardoon plant. They love cardoon seeds!)

Weeds, I get visits for dandelion seed heads, and any other fluffy garden flowers. This year the anemones were very popular.

They love pyracantha berries in autumn. Always flocks of them in my neighbour's pyracantha.

I had them for years and then sadly they stopped feeding despite hearing them around. I can only think more people are feeding them so they've moved to different feeders

Gosh, it's taken years to lure them into my new build garden. Silver birch is growing which they love.
Agree with sunflower hearts, RSPB ones are good quality.
They also love the Nyger seed, but I find it so messy, so have resolved to stick with the sunflower.
Also find they love low water.
Best of luck OP!

I heard from Gardeners' Question Time (Radio 4) one of the presenters says they get them on lavender seedheads.

I have had them visit our bird bath - it's a big shallow dish at ground level