![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lesser-goldfinch-3892-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"lesser-goldfinch-3892-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nConfusing to me anyway but then I’m often confused when it comes to molt and color variation in birds.<\/p>\n
Due to wildfire smoke I was once again confined to photographing birds in my garden yesterday morning. By dawn some of the smoke had cleared out so I spent about an hour photographing birds in my garden but it didn’t take long for another wave of thick, choking smoke to move in so I’ve been staying inside ever since.<\/p>\n
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1\/1000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Once again it was the amaranth<\/a><\/span><\/span> in my garden that was the big attractant for birds – they do love those small but copious seeds that don’t have to be hulled. This male Lesser Goldfinch was the only goldfinch of either species I saw yesterday and he didn’t stay long. It took him only about five or six seconds to land on the seed head, grab a seed or two, and then fly off over my back fence. Maybe he thought he was a chickadee.<\/p>\n I’m a little confused by those silly looking splotches of black on top of his head. The crown and forehead of adult males are solid glossy black and adult females lack the black on the head so what’s the explanation for those black splotches? My first thought was that this is a molting adult male but unlike the American Goldfinch this species has no seasonal color changes so it seems unlikely to me that this is an adult male.<\/p>\n So now I’m thinking that this bird must be an immature first year male just beginning to acquire the black forehead and bright yellow underparts of the adult male.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the first shot I got of him on the amaranth. For some silly reason when I first noticed those black patterns on his forehead I thought some of them looked like star anise,<\/a><\/span> which tastes a lot like licorice.<\/span> They don’t really look very much like star anise but that’s what first came to mind and now I can’t unthink it.<\/p>\n Humans eat amaranth seeds too (ground up as flour or even popped like tiny popcorn) but somehow I don’t think licorice-flavored flour or amaranth seeds would be a good combination. Yeah, my mind goes to weird places…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Confusing to me anyway but then I’m often confused when it comes to molt and color variation in birds.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lesser-goldfinch-3887-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"lesser-goldfinch-3887-ron-dudley\\"")
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