"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
On 19/01/2013 09:50, kay wrote:

'Pam Moore[_2_ Wrote:
;976930']

I also bought some niger seed, filled the feeder and waited..........
After a week the feeder was still full.
I emptied the seed out into a bag to give to a friend who does have
finches and refilled the tube with seed mix.
I looked up niger seed to see what it would grow into and it is a
boring coltsfoot/dandelion-looking type of flower. I wasted my money!


You were far too impatient! Three weeks is a more sensible time to allow
for a goldfinch who doesn't normally visit your garden to stray off
route, pluck up courage to investigate something that doesn't look like
his normal source of food, and then incorporate it into his regular
route.

It took my finches a couple of weeks, and they were visiting regularly
for the lavender. Now they are part of the garden furniture - it's
difficult to be in the garden without seeing them.

Spot on. They are somewhat shy little birds who are wary of anything new
at first. But once one (and it only takes one...) has found the feeder it
will come back and will attract others. We had 6 fighting to get on our
2-station feeder in the front garden a couple of days ago. They were
generally ignoring the feeder in the back garden, but occasionally that
gets a couple of goldfinches.

Occasionally the odd sparrow or blue tit will visit the niger feeders, but
they soon lose interest.

--

Jeff[/i][/color]

Shy? I'll agree it took a while for the goldfinches to discover my niger.
Even then they were irregular visitors but last year I started using
sunflower seed as well and now they are regular visitors using both the
niger and sunflower feeders. But shy? I don't think so. Stolid is a
word I'd use. They take up residence of a perch of a feeder and get stuck
in, stop for a rest, carry on, have another rest, etc. All this time other
small birds are appearing and trying to take up residence. A lot of the
time the goldfinches simply ignore the intruders, occasionally they stretch
a wing to persuade another bird to back off. They only retreat when a
starling appears. The local woodpecker has a similar approach - gets stuck
into the peanuts and won't allow anyone else on "his" feeder.