Gold Finch Images At Last

Black Thistle Filled Sock

It has been some time since I replaced the thistle sock outside my breakfast room window.  If you have been following my posts for the sock you will know that I emptied one sock, tried to stain it with tea and coffee to bring down the whiteness of it in photographs.  The drawstring on that one broke and I bought a new bag of thistle seeds.  I emptied the sock which had overwintered and was full of stale seed, refilling it with fresh seed.  Since I hung that newly filled sock, I haven't seen any gold finches feeding there.  They either don't know the location of the sock or are shy of its placement near the window.  In any case I did see a gold finch recently and it flew away as soon as I approached the window.  Several weeks have elapsed and within the last few days I have seen two and three gold finches on the sock at one time.  But, they still flew at my approach to the window.  I needed to change something.

My breakfast room window is large.  It is three single windows arranged in a bay.  Each window is 6', 1.8288m tall and together close to that wide.  Each window has wooden blinds of its own.  I lowered all of the blinds to the bottom of the window.  I rotated the left one closed, the middle and right blinds were angled down about 45º from the horizon.  Now I could see the bird bath and the thistle sock and had some cover from their sight.  At least that was what I thought.  The gold finches still flew if I approached the window quickly.

Again I needed to make a change.  This time I had my camera in hand and approached the bay from the left side, behind the completely closed blind.  Before I started towards the window on the right I checked my camera settings.  ISO-400, aperture priority exposure chosen, aperture set at f22, white balance-full sun, zoom lens fully extended and set to manual focus.  I could see the finches through the blinds of the middle window set at 45º.  I waited until the finch was behind the sock and almost out of my view.  I sneaked up to the right window closest to the sock and stood there, unmoving.  The finch looked around the sock and at me and didn't fly.  It went back to feeding.  I raised my camera and pushed the blind slats open enough to allow the barrel of the lens to be free of viewing obstructions.  Again, the finch stopped pulling seeds out of the sock and looked at me. Again it didn't fly.  I checked the camera again.   The lens on manual focus and aperture priority @ f22.  I chose this because I was using the zoom lens at its maximum length which compresses the depth of view and I wanted as much in focus as possible in case of movement of the bird towards or away from the camera.  I chose manual focus because the AF might not choose the spot I will choose manually.  At each touch of the shutter I held my breath to diminish the possibility of camera shake.  I finally captured some decent images of a gold finch feeding on the thistle sock.

If I hadn't been able to capture any images of the gold finches, my next step was to cover the right window with newspapers leaving a hole large enough for the lens only.  My wife would not allow that to stay up for long.

Bird Bath and Watering the Garden

The temperatures have been hovering near 100ºF, 38ºC, for over 6 days now, 105º, 40ºC, Friday alone.  The bird bath that I rescued from an abandon urban garden is the best addition to the garden.  I positioned a dripper over the bird bath.  This dripper, which I run water through sometimes, makes noise which helps to attracts birds.  The bird bath brings more birds to my window than the feeder or flowers.  Cat birds, robins, blue jays, house sparrows, house finches, gold finches, and mourning doves are those that come to the bird bath.  They all come to drink and bathe.

I use a soaking hoses to water the garden.  That attracts birds, also.  The soil was rock hard before I watered using the soaking hoses yesterday.  Once watered the soil was wet and loose.  Worms traveled toward the surface, both to the moisture and from the water, so as not to drown.  With the worms near the surface the robins had a feast.  I recommend getting a water source for the wildlife in your backyard.  A large flat bowl will do as long as the depth is no more than 2" or 50mm with a gradual slope from the greatest depth to the rim.  You will not regret adding a bird bath.

Black Thistle Socks

The overnight soaking of the thistle sock in tea was not successful.  The next morning I drained the tea/vinegar mixture from the bowl.  I decided to try coffee as a stain.  I keep used coffee grounds to add to the garden plants for both nitrogen and to lower the pH.  I am add them to the soil surrounding my lacecape hydrangea and a rhododendron.

Lacecap Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla normalis) before coffee grounds application

The rhododendron needs acidic soil and the flowers' color of the hydrangea can be changed to blue from pink by lowering the pH.  I took these used coffee grounds and ran hot water through them again into the stainless steel bowl and placed the sock back into the bowl.  The next day the sock was not bright white anymore.  I rinsed the sock and hung it on the clothes line to dry. Again, the reason I dyed the sock was to lower the contrast between the sock and the birds in the photograph.

A few days later, I took the stained sock from the clothes line and brought it into the house.  I purchased some thistle seeds and proceeded to fill the stained sock using a wide throated funnel.  Once the sock was full of seed I pulled the draw string tight to close the opening and began to tie an overhand knot.  I wanted the sock itself to be part of the knot.  I overfilled the sock, slightly, and I was having a difficult time rolling the knot to include the sock.  I realized I too much force when the draw string broke and withdrew from the tunnel sown into the top of the sock.  So much for staining the sock.  I emptied the newer sock, because the goldfinch had stopped eating from it, and used the funnel to fill it.  I used less power to tie the sock and hung it on the post.  I will need to fish a new drawstring into the tunnel of the stained sock and try again.  I really wanted the stained sock full but at least the goldfinch will be attracted by the full sock hanging on the post until I get the other fixed.  If I ever get the stained sock fixed.

Attracting Gold Finch

I moved the white sock containing black thistle seeds to the post near the breakfast room window, atop which sits the now empty robin nest.  In order to do that I moved the hanging planter of Verbena and Petunias to where the sock hung.  I also had a sock filled with black thistle hung throughout the winter from which the finches will not eat.  I emptied the overwintered sock onto the round patio table in a mound of seed.  I am curious to see if the finches will go through these seeds now that the seeds are easily accessible.  I shook out all of the seeds and turned the sock inside out removing every last seed.  For photographs, the stark white sock is too extreme for the exposures.  I will try to dye the sock brown with tea or coffee then buy some thistle seeds and refill the dyed sock.

I boiled water, placed a tea bag into a stainless steel bowl and submerged the sock.  It doesn't seem to be taking the tea stain.  I also placed about a tablespoon of white vinegar into the bowl as a mordant as done with easter egg dyes.  I will leave the sock submerged overnight.  If the sock has not accepted the stain by then I will add my coffee grounds to the bowl.  If neither of those work, I will spray paint the sock.

I have seen gold finches on the sock but have not had the opportunity to photography any there.  I did capture house finches at the bird bath.  The house finches do not feed from the sock nor do chickadees, nut hatches or titmice.

Male and Female House Finches at bird bath

Close up of Male House Finch at bird bath

Birds in my Garden

I planted several flowers with the intention of attracting wildlife, specifically, birds and insects.  I have a red honeysuckle, hardy geraniums, lavender, purple coneflowers, verbena, zinnias, Thai basil, sweet basil, sage, buddleja, hydrangea Lacecap, lobelia, lots of daylillies and hostas.  Hummingbirds are attracted to the honeysuckle and the red to blue color petunias.  Gold finch are attracted to the seeds from the purple coneflower.  All the rest attract butterflies and bees/parasitic wasps.

The buddleja aka Butterfly Bush attracts the most butterflies by far with the zinnias running a close second.  The honeysuckle-Alabama Crimson attracts the hummingbirds.  I also have in the garden two bird baths and a hanging sack of black thistle seeds.  The bird baths attract all kinds of birds, some prefer the bath on the ground rather than the one standing 3ft tall.  The baths must be washed and scrubed once per week to remove the dirt.  I also placed a dripping watering device about four inches above the surface of the water on the tall bath to add water daily and to make a sound that the birds may hear the splash.  I placed the standing bath and hung the sack of thistle seeds within three feet of my breakfast room window and the show is almost nonstop.  The black thistle has two gold finch clinging to the sack almost constantly.  You just have to love the color of those birds.  There are house finches in the bird bath that look as though someone dipped them them head first into raspberry juice.

I have photographs of the currently flowering plants just below.  Tell me how you attract wildlife to your garden.

Day Lilly-Hemerocallis

Day Lilly Double-Hemerocallis

Hardy Geranium - Cranesbill

Honeysuckle- Lonicera sempervirens 'Alabama Crimson'

Hydrangea Lacecap

Verbena

Some kind of bee on Thai Basil

Swallowtail Butterfly on Zinnia

Swallowtail Butterfly on Verbena

My neighbor's aggressive Campsis Radicans-Orange

Petunia