Larry wrote: Any thoughts as to what benefit they may be deriving from feeding on leaves?
Vitamin A, anthocyanins, roughage (fiber)... -- a Food Scientist's guess... Donna Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: W. Larry Hymes To: cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 7:47 PM Subject: [cayugabirds-l] Am. Goldfinch a.k.a. Salad-Bird Sara Jane and I recently discovered a most curious behavior of the Am. Goldfinch. For some time we had been noticing them feeding up in the leaves of our beet plants. When I inspected the plants, I noticed sections of the leaves were missing. I initially assumed that even though they primarily feed on seeds, they might be excavating leaf miners from the leaves, and while doing so coincidentally tore out sections of the leaves. But when we watched them through binoculars, we were astounded to see them clearly snipping off small bits of healthy, uninfested beet leaves and ingesting them. When I looked up Am. Goldfinch in the Audubon Encyclopedia of North American Birds, the mystery was solved. They will indeed feed on leaves of some plants, and in addition to the strange name of salad-bird, are also known by the peculiar names of beet-bird (eat seeds of beet plants - ours have no seed) and lettuce-bird. Had I not observed this behavior first-hand, I think I would have been extremely skeptical had someone tried to tell me that they feed on plant leaves! This is the first time we have ever seen goldfinches feeding on leaves. Has anyone else ever observed this behavior? Any thoughts as to what benefit they may be deriving from feeding on leaves. Larry -- ================================ W. Larry Hymes 120 Vine Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 (H) 607-277-0759, w...@cornell.edu ================================ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ -- -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
