I was looking out the kitchen window the other morning and there was an female American Goldfinch on one of the Purple Coneflowers. American Goldfinches like to eat the seeds of the Coneflower, especially in the fall. However, this female was not looking for seeds. She was pulling the petals off the flowers, but I didn’t see her fly away with them. Later in the afternoon a male was with her pulling petals off as well.
I’m not exactly sure why there were doing it. I tried looking up some information about why they were specifically focusing on petals and didn’t find much, but it was interesting to watch. Anyone else see this scenario before?
The Coneflowers also attract a lot of butterflies.
If anyone has an explanation let me know in the comments!
BirdNation 