Every year the Goldfinch pull off all of the petals of my Indian Summer flowers to get to the seeds. This year I decided to put bird netting over the flowers to keep them away. It had worked so far this summer until this morning I went out to check my flowers and saw a Goldfinch hung up in the netting. I thought he was dead. I put on gloves to get him out and he started moving. Then I carefully cut the netting around him and put him on the ground to cut all the netting out that he was tangled up in. He must have known I was trying to help him because he lay perfectly still for 2-3 minutes, as I cut the netting from his feet and neck and the rest of his body. I was trying to cut the last bit of netting from his feet, and he flew away. So that was a good ending to what could have been bad-- an injured or dead bird. I learned my lesson-- I will never use bird netting again. And I probably will not plant Indian Summer annuals again. I planted tall Heliopsis also in the yard and the birds so far are not interested. Goldfinch are my favorite birds, and I have a Goldfinch feeder and hoped that would also help keep them away from the flowers.

Betty