The goldfinch pecked at the rose-purple flowerhead of a bull thistle, its bloom burst into fluffy down spotted with brown seeds. What appeared foreboding to me was the lifeblood of the goldfinch, providing food and nest material for our latest-nesting songbird.
The finch picked through the down, extracting the seeds. By its bright yellow body I knew it was a male, and that it was feeding, for only the duller olive-colored female gathers thistle down to line its nest. At my approach, the goldfinch fluttered away, landing on a nearby blooming Jerusalem artichoke with just enough weight to bend the tall sunflower slightly.
This was a scene with mid August written all over it. The bull thistle blooming along with the Jerusalem artichoke, and the goldfinch finally nesting. It’s the bird that waits for the thistle to mature.
The goldfinch is content to sit out late spring and early summer, when a myriad of songbirds are nesting, some nesting twice before the goldfinch determines the thistles are ripe for down and seeds. These are the tickets of the goldfinch’s survival as nature spaces out the goods of nesting. This is why those wanting to attract goldfinches will allow some thistles on their property and hang thistle seed bags in the winter.
Though the goldfinch’s nest is made of strands of weeds and vine, it is lined with the soft downy filaments of thistles, a paradox of nature—sharp thistle tines and soft thistle down.
The male goldfinch I saw was not only feeding itself but also no doubt collecting seeds to take back to its mate incubating eggs or the chicks already hatched and ready to leave the nest. I once happened upon a family of goldfinches in late August, observing the adults feeding thistle seeds to their fledged young.
After hatching the chicks are ready to fledge in a couple of weeks, ready to join and add to the slender of autumn. Thanks to the bull thistle, there will be more yellow among the sunflowers and goldenrods.