Turns Out Finches Like Catnip Too

It all started with these two. I was up early on a projected hot day to get the fans going to pull in as much cool air as possible before I had to turn on the air conditioners. I sat down with my coffee and saw a flitting of color outside the window—two finches perched on a branch of catnip, a male house finch and a male goldfinch! Staking out the territory, checking to see if the catnip seeds were ready yet? Apparently so, because in short order several more of both species joined them.

I had run for my camera and spent the next hour off and on photographing them. And another joined the group above!

As the sun came around the house and chased away the cool shade they left for shadier spaces. Catnip is really an all-around great native pollinator plant to have in the yard because birds and butterflies visits it constantly as soon as the flowers start to bloom. Most mammals that eat plants don’t like mint so deer and groundhogs leave it alone, but kitties love it!

I took some photos through my screen door—because if I opened it they’d all fly away—and they were great angles but need some cleanup because you can’t see the screen pattern but it blurs the photo. Also, they are heavy enough to make the branches bounce when they land on them so there’s a lot of movement.

I photographed them all again two days later and was ready, and managed to get lots of photos of the goldfinches too. I will share those tomorrow.

I had noticed the finches visited my native forget-me-nots when they went to seed, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in the catnip. It’s a wild native plant and showed up in my yard years ago and my cats have been pretty happy about that. Guess the finches just found it and are pretty happy with it too.

 

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