For your finches: Nyjer seed
Nyjer seed is a popular seed for finch feeders. Our gold finches, house finches and purple finches love it. We offer it in a traditional tube feeder, but it is also available in sort of sock that the birds can hang from while they eat. House sparrows will also eat this seed, but there are ways to discourage this, which I will discuss later.
Nyjer is frequently referred to as thistle seed, but the two plants are not related. While finches do love thistle, and use the down to line their nests, they actually seem to prefer Nyjer when it is available. It has a high oil content which is important for wild birds.
This seed actually is imported from Egypt and thus has been heat sterilized. It is unlikely that this seed will sprout because of the heat sterilization, but seeds do occasionally survive the process. If you find one of the lovely little yellow flowers in your garden, you should remove it immediately. They can be quite prolific and you do not want to introduce a non-native species which could be detrimental to our native plants. Here is more information, from the Wild Bird Feeding Industry (pdf). Because this seed has been sterilized, it is not good for long. If the seed is much older than a month, birds will begin to reject it. If there is no activity at your finch feeder, try replacing the seed with fresh seed. This is one type of seed we only purchase from our local wild bird store because the freshness is so important.
Nyjer seed, Nyjer, birding, finch, backyard birding, birdwatching
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I use the Nyjer-Goldfinches also love shelled sunflower seeds.
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Ours completely ignored the sunflowers until we got a platform feeder. Now we will get more on it than at our finch feeder!
August 6th, 2007 at 9:50 am
[...] Lohan, or politics or even parenting toddlers. But why would you do that when you can talk about goldfinches, bird seed and cleaning bird [...]
February 1st, 2008 at 10:00 am
Yhanks you92e3a6724e95dfb48d690e1d216af56b