Gold Finch Good-bye

About 10 days before the autumnal equinox, my black thistle socks were ravaged by tens of gold finch.  The males were very aggressive about feeding at the socks.  Two males would fight at the sock and continue to fight mid-air for ten seconds or so.  Both of my socks were totally destroyed when the finches made holes in the fabric large enough into which their heads could fit.  Of course, the seeds spilled onto the ground to a level just below the hole in the sock and gold finch will not eat the seeds off the ground.

That is black thistle seed on the concrete

I decided to make a new sock.  I searched my house for some kind of material.  I didn't have the knit fabric used in the store bought socks.  The kind of material used in sport clothing.  I'm not nor ever have been, what you would call, athletic.  

Fabricline.com

In my garage what I found was window screening material that I thought had openings large enough through which the seeds would fit.  I found some thick thread in the sowing basket and proceeded to make the sock.

10" x 24"

I didn't measure the screen but cut about 10" of material from the roll of 48" wide screening.  I then cut that into approximately two pieces 10" by 24".  

10" x 24" doubled now 5" x 24"

I folded the width so that I had two 5" wide layers and only two sides to sow.  I threaded the needle having the largest hole and began to sew the short end closed.  I put the needle in the fourth set of holes from the cut edge.  I figured that the fourth set of holes would be far enough from the edge to reduce the chance of the seam ripping apart due to the weight of the seeds.  This size sock would probably hold 2 lbs. of seed when full.  I consciously used strong knots at the end of each run of thread.  I then turned the sock inside out.  In no time at all, the sock was ready to fill with black thistle seeds.


I used a funnel with a large throat to fill the sock and tapped the sock on my kitchen counter to get in the maximum amount of seed.  I then cut a 10" length of 1/8" cord.  I used an overhand knot in the loose ends and formed a circular cord.  I then gathered and twisted the top of the sock made from the screening material.  Placed the circular cord around the gathered and twisted sock and slipped the doubled cord into itself and pulled the longer end of the cord, tightening it around the sock.


Now it was time to test the finches ability to get the seeds out through the screening.  I hung my new feeder next to one of the store bought sock feeders.  I figured by placing the new feeder next to the old feeder it would shorten the discovery time for the gold finch.

I built it, now they would come.  By the end of the second day, only one female gold finch was feeding at the new sock.  She was able to extract seeds.  My creation was a success, sort of.  

The one an only female gold finch I saw feeding had ripped the screening material to get to the seeds.  Oh, well!  Back to the drawing board.

I will bring my new sorry feeder inside, pour all of the seeds into a sealable plastic bag and store them until next spring when the gold finches return.  Until then, I am thinking about the overwintering birds in my backyard.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

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.

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.