I've had a finch feeder with niger seed in it since March and haven't seen any goldfinches on it. (Nicole saw one and managed to snap an iPhone picture of it or I'm not sure I would have believed her) I've seen them out at Rockwood Park but not in the yard. Today I finally saw one on my hanging feeder, eating sunflower seeds. This was shot out my back window.
Here's another back window shot. When I first saw this bird, I thought I might have a new species in my yard. It flew off before I could see what it was. It came back later and I realized it's a cardinal with no head feathers. I did some searching around the internet and found several reports of this condition. There is some debate about the cause of this, some believe parasite or disease but others claim it is just unusual molting. Molting is the process all birds go through of shedding feathers and re-growing them. They normally don't loose enough feathers at a time to look this bad but apparently some individuals do. Anyway, it's a sad looking specimen of such a beautiful bird.
That cardinal is freaky, yikes!
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