Sunday, January 21, 2018

The Return of the Goldfinches


Dave and I were surprised to see at least four European goldfinches on our feeder yesterday morning. I wouldn't have thought it was the time of year to see them -- goldfinches supposedly migrate as far south as Spain during the winter -- but there they were, chowing down on our thistle seed.


As you can probably tell from those pictures, it was pretty rainy yesterday. The forecast initially said it would rain only in the morning, so -- being stupidly trusting -- I took Olga for a walk in the afternoon. We got to Fortune Green and had enough time to play fetch with the Kong five or six times, and then went to the cemetery, where we got caught in a drizzly rain of steadily increasing intensity. Pretty soon Olga was huddled under a tree, looking at me imploringly -- and when the dog throws in the towel, I know it's time to go home.

Last night Dave and I went to see "All the Money in the World," which we liked. Christopher Plummer is so terrific as John Paul Getty that it's hard to imagine Kevin Spacey ever had the part. Afterwards we went to dinner in St. John's Wood -- we had a gift card to a restaurant there from one of Dave's students, but by the time we arrived the restaurant was closing. So we went somewhere else. We'll have to save the gift card for another day!

11 comments:

Yorkshire Pudding said...

May we presume that St John gave you permission to enter his wood? Funny place to have a restaurant.

Shooting Parrots said...

Beautiful goldfinches. I can't say I've seen any in our garden so maybe they don't get this far north!

John Going Gently said...

The title sounds like Disney movie

e said...

So where did you go? Could you relate to Getty?

Ms. Moon said...

Those birds are as colorful and fancy as a flag. How beautiful!

Red said...

You really splurge on high class bird seed. No wonder goldfinches vist.

Anonymous said...

I am so surprised to see how different those goldfinches look from the species we see here. Your goldfinches there are so stunningly colorful.

Sharon said...

What a pretty little bird that is! That movie is one I haven't seen yet. However, I did you see Phantom Thread and I really enjoyed it. It was nothing like I expected but, I found the story interesting anyway.

Catalyst said...

I wonder how many varieties of goldfinch there are. We have them here but they are bright yellow bellied with no other discernible markings.

ellen abbott said...

very different from American goldfinches.

jenny_o said...

Those finches look for all the world like they are telling you where to go!! Their colouration is very different from the ones we get on the east coast of Canada.

The thing I like about snow is that if the forecast is wrong and it starts to snow while I'm out, at least it doesn't make you soaking wet, unlike rain tends to do.