American Goldfinch on a sweetgum ball
Spinus tristis
American Goldfinch · Prospect Park · 14 December 2025
An American Goldfinch hanging upside down off a spiky sweetgum seed ball in Prospect Park in December, working the seeds still held inside it. Goldfinches are birds of weedy fields and gardens across the continent, and in winter they move in flocks from one seed tree to the next.
Drab olive-yellow winter plumage rather than the male's bright breeding gold. Goldfinches are agile enough on a thin, swinging perch that the acrobatics barely slow the feeding. The sweetgum ball is a winter larder: each spike is a capsule, and the seeds fall out through it over months, which is why the finches keep coming back to the same tree.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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