This Week Outdoors: Whatever small number of monarch butterflies that might show up this summer should begin appearing.
Q: Why haven't I seen any young goldfinches this year? Russell Gant, Carlisle.
A: While most birds have completed raising their broods, or are nearly finished with that annual chore, American goldfinches are courting now in preparation for mating and nesting in July. Their nesting is timed to coincide with the blooming of thistles.
General wisdom once held that the bright, little birds timed their nesting to take advantage of the tiny seeds produced by the thistles as an abundant food source. And, goldfinches are thistle specialist, having evolved the ability to hang upside down on thistle flowers and pluck the seeds, a relatively rare ability among birds. The hanging-feeding ability is the reason that goldfinch thistle/niger seed feeders were developed with perches above the feeder openings.
However, more recently the birding community has come to understand that it's the thistle down that the goldfinches have been waiting to use in their nests. The wispy, silver fibers of thistle down - and some downy fibers from the heads of cattails - are the primary building material in goldfinch nests, which they generally place in the fork of a horizontal tree limb five to 15 feet off the ground.
After the female goldfinch builds her nests in July, she will lay four to six small, pale blue to white eggs, which she will incubate for 12 to 14 days. The ever-present male will keep her fed throughout the incubation period.
When the eggs hatch, the thistle flowers will have gone to seed in abundance. The parent birds will have a relatively easy chore of gathering enough to feed their brood. They eat the tiny seeds, partially digest them and regurgitate a goldfinch-form of pigeon milk into the mouths of their nestlings. That process will continue for 10 to 16 days, until the nestlings fledge and begin caring for themselves.
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