Goldfinch Talk

As anyone fortunate enough to live among them knows, Lesser Goldfinches are master mimics. LIke siskins, the bright males insert any number of borrowed vocalizations into their own scratchy songs, and it can be a good exercise to try to tease out the sources of their imitations on these warm desert days.

Since I’ve been back from Guatemala, I’ve been hearing one particularly gifted yellow fellow here in the yard. He imitates kestrels, Phainopeplas, Verdins, Ladder-backed Woodpeckers…all the usual themes for variation. But this virtuoso also gives an obvious flicker call, kleer!, in the middle of his songs, a note not part of any of my neighborhood goldfinches’ songbooks in years past. I wonder if the large number of Red-shafted Flickers in the lowlands this year has expanded his repertoire.