Greenfinches are lovely, beautifully-colored greenfinches common to the UK. They are mostly resident birds and can be seen year-round, and the males are much brighter in color than the females.
Greenfinches are typically friendly birds amongst themselves and with other birds too, and if the conditions are good, they will enjoy making themselves at home in your garden.
Find out how to attract greenfinches to your garden, and how to encourage them to spend some time there, below!
What Do Greenfinches Look Like?
Greenfinches are vivid green passerine birds that hover around the size of a sparrow.
Males are bright green, while females are green with a yellowish hue, which is a pattern we’ve seen before in birds (the male is usually the brighter or more colorful of the two; the more colorful they are, the more attractive they will be to female birds).
Like all finches, greenfinches have big, chunky beaks. They use a beak like this to break up too-big seeds (e.g., peanuts) into smaller pieces they can swallow!
When feeding, greenfinches will generally be amicable and social, simply feeding with other nice birds (with little to no bully behavior).
These lovely friendly little birds are quite common in the UK, they primarily eat seeds, with sunflower seeds at the top of the list, although they indulge in a rosehip or bug a snack!
How to Quickly Attract Green Finches to Your Garden
Would you like to know how to attract greenfinches to your garden? All you need is some particular plants in your garden and some strategically placed feeders.
What’s more simple than that? take a look!
Bird Feeder
We recommend a quality bird feeder as the most reliable attraction for nearly all birds.
Before purchasing a bird feeder, however, you will want to make sure it has a place to be situated safely.
If not, hawks, crows, cats, and all sorts of predators will find it as their own beautiful feeding spot!
To assist the green finches or other songbirds you may wish to attract to your yard, the feeder should be somewhere deep in the foliage of a tree.
It should be at least ten feet above the ground; the higher and more concealed from overhead predators the better!
Following up on feeder placement, as far as feeder type, make sure it’s a type the sparrow-sized birds can fit on. You will want another that deposits the seeds into troughs, with enough room for a couple medium-sized birds to feed comfortably.
Give This A Try: Greenfinches are especially fond of sunflower seeds, peanuts, and/or millet! If you want green finches in your flowers, a feeder model and supplies full of these will do the trick!
Plants
Besides having a bird feeder, you can also plant certain plants in your garden that greenfinches will like.
For instance, greenfinches eat rosehips, the fruit leftover after a rose has “spent” the flower.
Consider planting a few rose bushes or wild roses to provide your neighborhood greenfinches with a yearly harvest.
You could plant millet if you are already able to control its weed-like growth. Greenfinches also love poppies, purple coneflowers, daisies, cosmos, and marigolds (for the seeds).
Lastly, finches of all kinds (and birds of all kinds) love sunflower seeds, so planting them will bring together a little flock!
Bird Bath and Drinking Water
In nature, clean, safe, accessible water is a limited resource.
A birdbath is highly coveted by any and all species of birds—if you make sure it’s a safe distance away from potential predators.
The best scenario is either having it on your porch (if there are no cats) or underneath the tree, out of sight of predators!
After some time, you will likely see all the birds in your garden come for a hose down or a drink of water, and some of them may be greenfinches.
Here’s something else to think about; If you provide clean, safe, accessible water in your yard or garden (like a birdbath) it may encourage greenfinches to hang out longer near your bird feeder!
Time of Year
Luckily for those who want to see them, greenfinches can be seen in the UK all year.
They actually increase in numbers in the winter too!
If you hear a male greenfinch and its unmistakable twitter in January or February, that is when the breeding season starts.
Otherwise, with greenfinches, you really don’t have to worry about the time of the year!
Green Finches Are Attracted to Color
In addition to placing feeding plants that are beneficial for greenfinches in your garden, you can also include plants that are colorful and attractive such as asters or butterfly flowers.
Greenfinches, in general, which have so many lovely colors, are very attracted to colors themselves!
Final Word
Well, there you have it: how to attract greenfinches to your caring.
You just need to entice them, and the enticements could include coneflowers in your garden, providing a birdbath, or sunflower seeds in a feeder!