When I first processed these photos of birds taken in Livermore several weeks ago I took the lazy way out and named them simply “goldfinch”. But then a couple weeks later I was looking at them again and wondering which species of goldfinch they were and if they were even all the same, so of course I pestered the owl guru for a goldfinch lesson. As always she graciously obliged and as it turned out my guess of Lesser Goldfinch (as opposed to American Goldfinch) was correct! Although I think it’s even harder to tell the difference than I thought it was and basically my guess was just dumb luck.
It’s baby bird season once again so as last year, I find myself judging birds by how easy they are to feed as babies. Goldfinches are pretty easy and pretty darn charming, so I give them an A. 🙂
The owl guru thinks this one is probably a second-year male just getting adult plumage. It’s comments like that that make me throw up my arms and whine about how hard birding is. Who can remember all the differences between males and females, adults and juveniles, breeding and non-breeding plumage?? I don’t know how the owl guru does it! (I actually DO know adult and juvenile plumage differences in raptors, but there aren’t really that many raptor species around here to remember and they are MOSTLY easy to tell apart.)
Be First to Comment