Golden days of summer

When the drab winter colours of the goldfinch brighten, I welcome the foretelling of warmer months to come. These beautiful boys at my sunflowers nested later than most, waiting until June or July for the seeds of the thistles and milkweed to abound, and  to be incorporated into their nests. Later, when their eggs have hatched, they will feed thistle, sunflower, and milkweed seeds to their young. Goldfinches, strict vegetarians that they are, may have brown headed cowbirds lay eggs in their nest but the cowbird chicks die because they can’t survive on the all-seed fare that goldfinches thrive on.