American Goldfinch, side profile

Spinus tristis

American Goldfinch · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 19 August 2026

An American Goldfinch side-on on a coneflower head in the August border, the black wings with their white bars showing well against the yellow body. It is the finch of weedy fields and gardens across the continent, and a seed head in late August is its whole business.

No black cap, so a female - or a male already on his way out of breeding colour, since goldfinches are one of the few songbirds to moult twice a year, and by late August the males are beginning the slow fade into the drab olive they wear all winter. The bill is the conical seed-cracker of a finch, pale and slightly pink, and the feet are gripping a stem most birds its size would find too thin to bother with.