Nyjer and finch feeders: why they empty slowly and how that breaks them

The short answer

• Nyjer feeders empty far more slowly than seed feeders, so the seed ages in the tube. Stale nyjer is the cause of most abandoned finch feeders, not the design or the location.
• Fill to a 10 to 14 day supply, which in an average yard means about a third of a standard tube, and empty and refill rather than topping up.
• Ports must be a slit of roughly 1/8 in. A sunflower-sized port pours nyjer onto the ground; a clogged or swollen slit delivers nothing.
• An upside-down thistle feeder, with the ports below the perches, keeps most House Finches off while American and Lesser Goldfinches and Pine Siskins feed normally.
• Winter goldfinches are dull olive-brown, not yellow. Most people who think their goldfinches left in November are watching them at the feeder without recognizing them.

A nyjer feeder is a specialist tool with a narrow guest list. Four species in our dataset use one, and they are worth the trouble: two goldfinches, the Pine Siskin, and the House Finch that you may or may not want.

• Top-tier favorite for: American Goldfinch, Lesser Goldfinch, Pine Siskin
• Eaten readily by: House Finch, Purple Finch, Dark-eyed Junco
• Taken occasionally by: Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Mourning Dove, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow

The narrowness is the point, and it is also the design's weakness. A feeder that serves four species, at least two of which are absent from any given yard for part of the year, does not empty quickly. Nearly everything that goes wrong with finch feeders traces back to that one fact.

Three ways to hold nyjer#

Tubes are the tidiest option and the best in weather, because the seed sits in a closed column. The limit is the port count: six ports means six birds, and a goldfinch flock in January is considerably larger than six.

Mesh feeders let birds cling wherever they land, which suits goldfinches and siskins because both are natural clingers. A dozen birds can work one at once. Mesh also breathes, so the seed inside dries after rain instead of sitting damp.

Socks are a nylon mesh bag. They work well for two or three weeks and then the fabric wets through and stays wet, and the bottom third turns into a sour clump that the birds refuse. Treat a sock as consumable, not as a feeder you own. The head to head is in nyjer sock versus nyjer tube.

The slow-emptying problem, with numbers#

Here is the arithmetic that explains the whole page.

A standard nyjer tube holds about 24 fl oz, roughly 1.5 lb of seed. As a working figure, a yard with four to six goldfinches in it moves somewhere around 1 to 2 oz of nyjer a day. That is our working figure rather than a published one, and your yard will differ, but run it through:

• 24 oz at 2 oz a day is 12 days.
• 24 oz at 1 oz a day is 24 days.
• Outside flock season, with a pair or two dropping in, it can easily stretch past six weeks.

Compare that to a sunflower feeder in the same yard, which may need refilling twice a week. The sunflower is always fresh because it never gets the chance to be anything else. The nyjer is sitting in a plastic tube in the sun for a month.

Nyjer is about 35% fat by our nutrition figures, and it arrives in North America already heat-sterilized, a requirement designed to stop contaminant seeds germinating. Heat treatment is the start of the clock, not the end of it. Add a month in a warm tube and the oil oxidises, the seed dries out, and the birds are no longer interested.

"The birds abandoned my finch feeder"#

This is the single most common finch feeder complaint, and it has a reliable diagnostic order. Work down it and stop when something matches.

1. Check the seed first, always. Tip a handful into your palm. Fresh nyjer is glossy black, slim, and slightly oily to the touch: pinch one between thumbnail and finger and it should crush and leave a small oily mark. Old nyjer is dull, gray-brown, dusty, and shatters into powder rather than crushing. If the tube is more than half dust at the bottom, that is your answer. This accounts for most cases on its own.

2. Check the ports. Poke each slit with a toothpick. Nyjer swells slightly when damp, and a port that has been rained into can seal over with a paste of dust and oil while the tube above looks perfectly full.

3. Check the season. Goldfinches are heavily on natural seed in late summer and early autumn, when thistle, coneflower and other composites are ripening everywhere. Feeder use genuinely dips. It comes back in late autumn.

4. Check what else changed. A new hawk in the neighborhood, a cat, a feeder moved 20 ft, a tree cut down. Finches are flock birds and a flock that finds a threat will relocate as a unit, often for a fortnight, then come back. More on this pattern in no birds at my feeder.

5. Only then blame the feeder. In practice a feeder is at fault mainly when it has never been washed, and the film of nyjer oil around the ports has gone rancid.

The remedy in all cases is the same: empty it completely, run the standard wash, disinfect and dry routine in how to clean a bird feeder, and refill it a third full from a fresh bag. Buying a new feeder without doing this usually reproduces the same result with a new object.

Port geometry#

Nyjer seed is small and slim, roughly 1.5 mm across and 4 mm long, and the port has to hold it in while letting a fine bill get at it.

• The correct port is a narrow vertical slit of about 1/8 in. Goldfinches take seed sideways through the slit, one at a time.
• A round sunflower port is about 3/8 in and will simply drain nyjer onto the ground. If you pour nyjer into a sunflower tube feeder, you will lose the fill in a day, which is an expensive mistake at nyjer prices.
• Mesh openings should be around 1/8 in. Coarser mesh spills; finer mesh clogs.
• Perch below the port is the standard arrangement, and perch above the port is the upside-down variant covered next.

If you want goldfinches without the nyjer economics, the alternative is sunflower hearts in a fine mesh or wide-slit feeder. Goldfinches, Lesser Goldfinches and siskins all rate hearts as a top-tier food in our data, exactly as they rate nyjer, and hearts turn over faster because every other bird in the yard eats them too.

Upside-down feeders and the House Finch question#

House Finches are not a problem bird in most yards, but they are noisy, numerous and they crowd goldfinches off a feeder. If you have twenty of them and four goldfinches, the goldfinches lose.

An upside-down thistle feeder puts the ports below the perches, so a bird has to hang head-down to feed. American and Lesser Goldfinches and Pine Siskins do this without a second thought: all three are acrobatic clingers that feed on hanging seedheads in the wild. Most House Finches will try it a few times and give up.

It is a bias, not a wall. Individual House Finches learn, and in a yard with no other food they will persist. But in a normal station, where they have a sunflower feeder available a few feet away, the split happens quickly and the goldfinches get their feeder back.

Winter flocks, and the caveat that comes with them#

Winter is the best finch feeding of the year, and it starts with a piece of recognition. American Goldfinches molt out of the bright yellow breeding plumage each autumn into a dull olive-brown. They do not leave. The drab birds on the feeder in January are the same birds, and they are now in flocks rather than pairs.

In irruption winters, Pine Siskins push far south of their usual range and can arrive in dozens. A six-port tube cannot handle that. If siskins turn up, add a mesh feeder or a second tube rather than letting thirty birds queue at one surface.

Buying and storing nyjer#

Because the seed ages in the feeder, it matters that it is not already old when you buy it.

• Buy small bags, more often. A 20 lb sack is poor value if half of it goes stale before it is used. Work out how much your feeder actually takes in a month and buy to that.
• Squeeze the bag. Fresh nyjer feels slippery and dense. A bag with a lot of loose dust in the bottom corner has been sitting.
• Store it cool, dark, dry and airtight, and in summer the freezer is not excessive. Guidance on this is in storing birdseed, and the seed itself is covered in nyjer seed.
• Never top up. Adding fresh seed on top of a month-old layer buries the problem instead of fixing it. Run the feeder down, wash it, refill.

A finch feeder is a good third or fourth purchase, once you have the birds to justify it. If you are not yet sure goldfinches are around, put sunflower hearts in your existing feeder first and see who arrives. The build order is set out in how to choose a bird feeder.

Frequently asked questions#

Why did the birds stop using my finch feeder?

Almost always stale nyjer. The seed is high in oil, it is heat-treated before import so it is already partly aged when you buy it, and a finch feeder empties so slowly that a single fill can sit for a month or more. Finches will simply stop coming rather than eat it. Tip the feeder out, check the seed by pinching a few (fresh nyjer crushes and leaves an oily mark, spent nyjer shatters into gray dust), wash and dry the feeder, and refill it a third full with seed from a fresh bag.

Nyjer tube, mesh feeder or sock: which is best?

A mesh feeder for most yards, because birds can cling anywhere on it, several can feed at once, and it drains and dries quickly. A tube is tidier and better in wind and rain but limits you to the number of ports it has. A sock is cheap and works well for a few weeks, then wets through and starts rotting from the bottom, so treat it as a seasonal item rather than a feeder you keep. Whichever you use, fill it partway rather than full.

How do I keep House Finches off my nyjer feeder?

Use an upside-down thistle feeder, where the ports sit below the perches so the bird must feed hanging head-down. American and Lesser Goldfinches and Pine Siskins do this without hesitation, and House Finches largely will not persist at it. It is not absolute, and a determined individual will work it out, but in most yards it shifts the balance decisively within a week or two. It also cuts the number of birds crowding a shared surface, which is worth having in itself.

Why is nyjer seed so expensive?

It is imported, mostly from Africa and South Asia, and it must be heat-sterilized before entry so that contaminant seeds cannot germinate. That processing and shipping sits on top of a small, light seed, so the price per pound runs well above sunflower. The practical consequence matters more than the price: heat treatment shortens the seed's usable life, so nyjer bought in bulk and stored through a summer is often dead on arrival at the feeder.

Do goldfinches leave in winter?

In most of their range, no. American Goldfinches molt out of the bright yellow breeding plumage in autumn into a dull olive-brown, and they flock. People watching a feeder full of drab little finches in January are usually looking at the same birds they admired in June. Winter is in fact the best finch feeding of the year in many yards, especially in an irruption year when Pine Siskins push south and arrive in numbers.

Can I put sunflower hearts in a nyjer feeder?

In a mesh feeder or a wide-slit tube, yes, and goldfinches rate fine hearts as highly as nyjer. It is often the better choice: hearts cost less per pound, turn over faster because more species eat them, and do not have nyjer's staleness problem. In a true nyjer tube with 1/8 in slits, hearts will jam the ports. Check the port size before switching, and go with fine chips rather than whole hearts.

Sources and further reading

1. American Goldfinch life history Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds Seasonal plumage change, flocking and diet
2. Feeding Birds: seed types and feeders Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project FeederWatch Nyjer as the finch specialist seed and the feeders that suit it
3. Sick Birds and Bird Diseases Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project FeederWatch Disease risk when finch flocks concentrate at feeders
4. Wildlife Health Bulletins USGS National Wildlife Health Center Agency guidance on feeder removal during outbreaks