I t is curious that it has taken goldfinches so long to discover the delights of black sunflower seeds. In recent months many other garden-bird feeders have reported goldfinches being attracted to black sunflowers. That seems to be what is happening here. Quite what will happen when my birds start breeding remains to be seen, but I will be continuing to feed the black sunflowers throughout the summer in the hope of keeping them coming. G oldfinches are on the northern edge of their range here in Britain, and to see them in abundance you have to go to the Mediterranean.
Many British goldfinches go there, to, for only a minority of our breeding birds winter here.
The majority move to Belgium, western France and Spain. Some travel considerable distances, with the maximum recorded distance for a British ringed bird being 1,200 miles. A century ago goldfinches were much rarer in Britain than they are today. Their attractive colours made them popular cage birds, and it was trapping for the cage-bird market that caused their scarcity. Today they are doing well, with numbers stable, or even increasing slightly.