Goldfinches!

Goldfinches Eating Duckweed in the Expanded Margins of the Wetland, September 6, 2021

Like the solitary sandpipers (one was there again this morning), the local goldfinch flock also stands to gain from the decreasing water levels and increasing mud flats of the wetland. When I first arrived this morning, this trio of goldfinches were busily devouring duckweed -- you can see a bit hanging out of the beak of the one on the far right in the photo above. At one point before I left, there were at least seven goldfinches in this area of the wetland which a week or two ago was covered in water. The receding water level has left duckweed accessible to the goldfinches, which I've seen in this part of the wetland every time I've come for the past week or so.

If you're like me, you may be surprised to think goldfinches would eat duckweed. A number of years ago I got photos at the beaver dam at Meadowbrook Park in Urbana of a goldfinch hanging head down from a branch over the water. I thought it was getting a drink until I looked at the photos and saw that in fact it was eating duckweed. Again in the photos I have from the goldfinches today there is enough detail to determine that they are in fact eating duckweed or at least something very much like it (click on the photo to enlarge it).

"It's an ill wind that blows no good," they say. The wetland's shrinking water levels are bad news for the many tadpoles still in process as well as dragonfly naiads not ready to emerge and probably many other creatures dependent on the water for survival, but for the solitary sandpipers, the goldfinches, the raccoons and no doubt many other creatures, the decreasing water level provides great dining opportunities.

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