If there’s one thing I like more than I like birds, it’s The Secret History. Imagine my excitement when it was announced in February that Donna Tartt’s new novel would be named after one of my favorite kinds of finch. So in honor of The Goldfinch, which is coming out in a matter of days, October’s bird of the month is THE GOLDFINCH.
If you live in the United States, you’ve almost certainly seen an American goldfinch: they live throughout the country, moving south for the winter and back north for the breeding season. The goldfinch is the state bird of Iowa, New Jersey and Washington. Here’s a male of the species:
This is his winter outfit: a pinkish-brown body and head and a pale yellow throat, with black and white tipped wings. Come summer, he puts on his glad rags and goes in search of a mate. He replaces his muted body feathers with bright yellow ones and adds a glossy black cap. Even his stubby little beak, perfect for winkling seeds out of their shells, changes color, going from dullish pink to bright orange. He looks a completely different bird:
I think his winter plumage is more stylish, but what do I know? The female goldfinches like his summer look. (The females also change their appearance with the seasons, but in less spectacular fashion. As with so many bird species, the male is the sartorial show-off.)
All goldfinch species belong to the genus Carduelis (‘thistle’) and most goldfinch species share a love of thistle-eating. This peculiar predilection has made the bird a symbol of Jesus’s crown of thorns and, by extension, of the crucifixion. Goldfinches flutter and perch in Renaissance Madonna and Child paintings, a bright reminder of the suffering to come. In Federico Barocci’s ‘The Madonna of the Cat’, the infant John the Baptist grasps a goldfinch in his fat hand, waving it above an entranced cat:
You will notice that this goldfinch looks different from the American kind. It is a European goldfinch, the same species that peers through a torn bit of paper on the cover of Donna Tartt’s novel. Her goldfinch is taken from a 17th-century Dutch painting by Carel Fabritius. Also called ‘The Goldfinch,’ it’s one of the favorite paintings of her hero’s mother.
S. Vere Benson, Honorable Secretary of the Bird-Lovers’ League, writes in the pocket Observer’s Book of Birds (1937), that the European goldfinch is ‘one of our smaller Finches, and… perhaps the most handsome in appearance of them all, and very dainty in its ways’. Which is true.
Unlike the American goldfinch, the European goldfinch looks the same all year round, and there’s not much difference between the male and the female. You can best identify the species by its red face mask and the bright yellow bars on its wings. S. Vere Benson describes its call as ‘a high tinkling twitter, reminiscent of Japanese wind-bells. Song, similar and fairy-like.’ Sadly, this song has attracted less benign admirers than S. Vere, and the goldfinch has been a popular caged bird since the Middle Ages. Here’s little Alexandrine Le Normant d’Étiolles, daughter of Madame de Pompadour, with her pet goldfinch:
The composer Vivaldi celebrated the goldfinch song in a kinder way. In his concerto “Il Gardellino”, the flute takes the role of the bird, twittering away above the other instruments. I was dubious about the resemblance at first, but it’s totally there, I promise.
As its name suggests, the European goldfinch does not live in America. It has, however, crossed the Atlantic in the form of the distelfink, a stylized drawing of the bird which appears in Pennsylvanian Dutch folk art. The distelfink is a symbol of happiness, luck and the Pennsylvanian Dutch nation itself.
[Baptismal Certificate, 1788]
The distelfink is delightful, but I think you’ll agree it’s not nearly as delightful as the real thing:
Donna Tartt has chosen wisely and well. Would you expect any less?
[Images via Wikimedia Commons. The Madonna of the Cat via Federico Barocci, The Madonna of the Cat (‘La Madonna del Gatto’), probably about 1575: © The National Gallery, London]
Tags: bird of the month, birds, donna tartt, hannah rosefield
Wonderful! I love finches! I’m relatively new to the love of birds, but if there really is going to be a bird of the month feature on The Toast, I am very happy about it.
When I see small birds, I can’t help visualizing gently holding them (barely touching) in my cupped hand, perhaps with their little legs hanging down between my fingers. I imagine they would be very warm and structured something like a light, hollow ball. Since in real life they would also be dead of a panic attack from being held, it is not to be.
This is the best and truest thing I have ever read, and I am going to visualize this the next time I have a panic attack.
Awww!
You can actually hold small birds without killing them! It is the best. Ornithologists do bird counts to see what kinds of birds are in an area. You set up a mist net that they fly into, and then untangle them and weight them and such. Highly recommended!
Oooohhhhh! Adding this to my wish list. But I wouldn’t want to scare them…
My dad was a biology teacher and used to band birds in our backyard. He had a whole tackle box full of different sized bands! My sister and I LOVED to watch him untangle them from the net and hold them in his hand while he applied the band, then let them go.
Mt. Shasta has chickadees that will land on your head and hands, hunting for handouts.
I assume this happens in other, remote places too – but they are clearly inferior to the first place where this happened to me.
Finches are so cute! I also applaud the Bird of the Month feature.
Ditto, and ditto. As a very amateur birdwatcher and winter goldfinch feeder, I say thanks and more, please.
also is anyone experiencing this thing where the number of comments shown on the front page and at top of article is wildly inaccurate? like when you scroll down to the comments there are way more?
It’s been doing it for me. The number on the front page will be accurate, but the number at the top of the article will show “No Comments”. It updates eventually, though, because the number is accurate for this article not, but wasn’t when I skimmed the article before I left work.
Y’know, Hannah, I see what you mean about the winter plumage (so cute that you called it his winter outfit!). It’s kind of like the menswear version, definitely more stylish, though the summer feathers are such a beautiful yellow. In the winter picture, his under-butt feathers look all cute and cowlicky., too. GAH, why can’t I pet a bird?
Ah! I know the distelfink! I didn’t know it was based off a finch, though. I think it may be gone now, but Gettysburg, along with ghosts, is home to this gem:
Goldfinches used to be my favourite bird when I was a kid! Very plentiful during Canadian winters. Now my favourite bird is probably the cardinal though. It may be because the males are the perfect lipstick colour.
This is like Birdnote BUT BETTER. And there is very little better in this world than Birdnote.
Yes! I’m from NJ and very proud to have the goldfinch as my state bird. Didn’t know it was whoring itself out to so many other states, though. Damn, little guy.
Hey, talk about whore birds, how about the cardinal? That’s the state bird of quite a few states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia. Hoor.
North Carolina, as well.
I think my favorite part of (watching) bird banding is when they put the birds into little film canisters and the like to weigh them 🙂 I can't help but giggle when I see their little feet sticking out.
(If anyone here is an ornithologist, I pretty much think that you're the Coolest Person Ever.)
This is utterly wonderful. So delighted by this feature, and by finches in general.
This is so well written, and I love hearing about the history of a bird in various cultures. The only thing that would make this feature better would be to change it to Bird of the Week. Birds love toast, so it is only fitting that the Toast loves birds.
My dad was a biology teacher and used to band birds in our backyard. He had a whole tackle box full of different sized bands! My sister and I LOVED to watch him untangle them from the net and hold them in his hand while he applied the band, then let them go.
I am so on board for Bird of the Month and your first choice! My mom had a ton of birdfeeders when I was a kid and we always got lots of goldfinches.
North Carolina, as well.
You’re the best writer in the world and I love you
Jo.
You're the best writer in the world and I love you
Jo.