We hear goldfinches more often than see them. They twitter as they fly over the plot and garden or rest in the trees.  

Click on the sound icon to visit the RSPB page that has a sound clip of it's song.

The most colourful member of the finch family found in Britain; the collective word for a flock of goldfinches is a charm which is perfectly suited to them. In Victorian times they were very popular cage birds. Fortunately in Britain they are now protected from this fate by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Their nest are often built at the ends of thin branches, often in fruit trees, or among brambles and lined with wool or thistle down. They lay five or six eggs and can have up to three broods a year.  

Goldfinches have a much slimmer beak than that of most members of the finch family and can winkle seeds from plants that other finches find inaccessible such as thistles, teasels and dandelions. They are light birds and can perch on plants that would not hold the weight of a heavier bird. When our allotment site was overgrown and unloved goldfinches were often seen in groups browsing the thistle seed heads.

Goldfinches are becoming more common in gardens with many suppliers offering specially designed feeders which can be filled with niger seeds especially for them.  Niger are oil rich seeds that come from a relative of the sunflower the seed hearts of which goldfinches also love.  

They will also take seed from lettuce if it is allowed to run to seed and garden plants such as cosmos and cornflowers. Although goldfinches are classed as seed eating birds they will also take insects. The young bird in the video clip is clearing aphids from the underside of the leaves of one of our plum trees.