While most of our backyard songbirds are finished with or winding down their nesting season, American Goldfinches are just getting started! So why do they wait until so late in the season to raise their kiddos? The answer comes down to one word: food. Or, more specifically: seeds!

Unlike other songbirds that feed lots of insects to their young, American Goldfinches are strictly vegetarian and eat and feed their young only seeds. If you grow a flower garden you may notice them pulling seeds from the heads of coneflowers, sunflowers, thistle and milkweed. You may also notice them pulling the fluffy down fibers from these same seed heads. That’s because the plants that provide them with food for their young also provide them with the soft material they use to line their nests!

It’s the female goldfinches that build the cup-shaped nests in shrubs or trees anywhere from a few feet off the ground to 30 feet above ground. Even though the females are the true architects in the family, the male will help bring plant fibers to the construction site.

Once the nest is built, mamma goldfinches will lay between 2-7 pale bluish white eggs, which she will incubate from 12-14 days. Once hatched the little ones take about 11-17 days to grow before they leave the nest (this is known as fledging and the young are known as fledglings). Papa goldfinches will provide food to both the mother and chicks. Goldfinch families raise between 1-2 broods a season.

If you want to help out your goldfinch neighbors, we recommend planting flowers that go to seed at this time of year or putting out feeders filled with sunflower chips (sunflowers without the shell), fine sunflower chips, thistle (also known as nyjer), or our Finch Blend (a mix of sunflower chips and thistle). It’s always good to provide a clean water source for drinking, bathing and staying cool.

Good luck to all the goldfinch families this summer! Just think – once the chicks fledge we can hope to see goldfinches galore, as parents introduce their kiddos to our sunflower and thistle feeders!