Location Chief Logan Scout Reservation, Ray, OH
The American Goldfinch is one of the birds that got me interested in birding.
After I moved into our first house in Hilliard, for some reason I started to notice birds around me. I think it started with the robins, but then I started seeing these bright yellow birds flying around. I honestly thought that all birds were basically brown or black, with the cardinal and blue jay (and robin) being notable exceptions. So I was fascinated by these bright yellow birds that seemed so common.
I remember pointing them out to my dad during a visit and asking him what they were. He had shown some knowledge of birds in the past by talking about how bluebirds were once common but had since disappeared. (This was years ago before they had since recovered.) His only thought was that they were escaped cage birds. While the brilliance of their color certainly made that a viable guess, they were way too common for me to accept that answer.
At some point, I don't know when, I figured out what they were. So this is another example of a sighting that was recorded after the very first identification. I also know that this was a male because in my notes I wrote "First female sighted at Nationwide on 7/8/02."
I also see from my notes (but I don't really remember this) that I was birding by ear at this point. I don't know if I was just hearing a bird sound, and thereby trying to find any bird, or if I knew what a goldfinch sounded by this time. I wrote "This one really had me fooled; I was looking for him ahead of me in a field, and I finally turned around and saw him right behind me in a tree."
That certainly wouldn't be the last time that I had trouble seeing a bird after hearing it (I'm looking at you, Tennessee Warbler).
Cornell: American Goldfinch
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