American Goldfinch, male
Spinus tristis
American Goldfinch · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 26 July 2026
A male American Goldfinch in full breeding yellow in the July border, black cap sharp against it. Goldfinches are birds of weedy fields and gardens across the continent, and July is when they are just beginning to nest, later than almost any other songbird.
The timing is the seed: they wait for thistle and the other composites to ripen, which is what they feed the young. Unusually for a finch, they stay almost entirely vegetarian even as nestlings, at an age when most seed-eating birds switch temporarily to insects.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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