Kitchen Garden Forum

We have a Goldfinch visiting the garden and stripping sprigs from the Thyme plants.I guess that it is nesting nearby and wants it to smell nice!!!

Ah pretty birds! Make it easy for them Snooky and cut a few snippets off the plants to save them work!

Ah yes, I had some tweetling about in the gum tree yesterday morning. It seems they like fragrant foliage!

How cute! As far as I know, birds have a poor sense of smell. Rather, the bird instinctively collects those herbs that may be beneficial to her. I am not an ornithologist, I cannot say exactly what and why.

Kayburton, interesting you say that as I think I saw some TV show on this instinctive nature to go for smell. (Or look)!
It was about birds nests - & many birds collect smelly foliage to keep the nest free from mites & the like. It was years ago & probably getting into day zone after a run of night shifts as used to pick out the most boring & unexciting to move the bed time earlier.

We had sparrow terraces at our old house (3 wide boxes, each subdivided into 3 individual compartments) and when hubby cleaned them out each year, he often found sprigs of lavender and bay leaves in them. Ahhhh!

Interesting about smells and birds. We have an unused bird box on a rather bare west facing fence which has never been used, perhaps because it,s too exposed although blue tits usually investigated it every year. I wonder if I put a few sprigs from our rosemary bush in it some bird might be tempted?

Interesting about smells and birds. We have an unused bird box on a rather bare west facing fence which has never been used, perhaps because it,s too exposed although blue tits usually investigated it every year. I wonder if I put a few sprigs from our rosemary bush in it some bird might be tempted?

Worth a try I would say Primrose & maybe some artificial cover in around for them sneak out for food for the hatchlings if it is a bit exposed. Or give them the full des res & plant some rosemary under the fence as well so they have some cover & tips to take you have a lovely row of colour on along the fence.

OMG goldfinch is a wonderful bird! Hope this herb was useful for him

We have a wooden windchime in the shape of a Dragon(Idris,of course!)hanging from the low roof overhang and for some reason this year's brood of Goldfinches have taken a shine to it.They play in,on and around in a game of chase before going onto the roof to forage for bugs and grubs in the moss on the tiles.Fascinating.

snooky wrote:We have a wooden windchime in the shape of a Dragon(Idris,of course!)hanging from the low roof overhang and for some reason this year's brood of Goldfinches have taken a shine to it.They play in,on and around in a game of chase before going onto the roof to forage for bugs and grubs in the moss on the tiles.Fascinating.

It seems to be very nice!

Primrose wrote:Ah pretty birds! Make it easy for them Snooky and cut a few snippets off the plants to save them work!

They love NIGER Seed. Suggest you put seed in a Niger seed container. Harder for the other birds to get too.

Goldfinches are attracted to those tiny black nigella seeds if yiu have a bird feeder capable to containing them.
They can be a bit of a nuisance if they fall to the ground thiugh as they then germinate and start sprouting everywhere.

Oh that's interesting. I'm looking to attract goldfinch to my backyard. Is that a new tip for me?