Never in my lifetime have I seen a goldfinch but I did that day. I was sitting on my deck and out of the corner of my eye, I spied a speck of yellow fly out of my neighbors dense foliage and over the top of the garage roof next door. I thought to myself that must be a wild canary and I looked up wild canary the next time I came inside. What popped up was a picture of a goldfinch.
Since I saw the yellow speck in my lazy part of the day, I just registered it a question for when I actually went back into the house. A short while later, I noticed a beautiful yellow bird with the black cap and v-shaped black wings sitting on a rung in my other neighbor's fence. To my wonderment this bird stayed perched there for several minutes letting me take in the beauty of a first time experience.
I had never seen such a bird in all my born days except in nature books and I was thrilled beyond words to have seen it. As a young adult my neighbors owned a greenhouse and neighborhood flower shop. Mister Blaha was a great outdoors man and he loaned me several books, one of which was a bird guide. Since I have long since lost that book, I now rely on my internet for my sightings.
As you know I spent two months in 2011 just attracting birds to my deck with a selection of seeds in various bird feeders and did a whole list of the birds that I had seen and heard.
This beauty never visited my feeder but that is understandable since I have now read their migration habits and what types of flowers attract them. They are attracted to seeds and since my neighbor recently planted a sunflower in his yard that is as tall as an elephants eye. I'm guessing that it should be going to see about now and I attribute the attraction to that plant.
I will never again make the mistake of thinking that I have seen and done all my "Firsts."
.JPG)
