Lesser Goldfinch
Bird 4 of 5
Hey great job for spotting me!
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I’m a non-migratory bird native to the San Lorenzo riverbed.
So where did I get my name from? Gold - well check me out. Finch - for the type of bird I am. And Lesser - because I’m the smallest of all Northern American goldfinches. I’m a perching bird, in the songbird group. Like my other finch relatives, my beak is strong and lets me crack open seeds of daisies, weeds, grasses and trees. I love to sing, and you might hear my sweet, chattery conversations with others of my kind. You’ll often find me nesting in cottonwoods and willows along the river.
Lesser Goldfinches have been rescued 21 times by the Native Animal Rescue in the past 5 years.
Listen to my melody.
Photographer credit: Eric Gofreed
Keep questing and find the other birds!
(Snowy Egret, Red-Tailed Hawk, Black Phoebe, Bewick’s Wren)
Thank you to the Santa Cruz Arts Council, The Tannery Art Complex, Radius Gallery, Santa Cruz Bird Club, Native Animal Rescue (Lisa Rose), Lorrie Klosterman (author of Animals and Plants of Monterey Bay: Santa Cruz Shoreline), The Bird School Project (Kevin Condon) for making this public installation project possible.