You took the words right out of my mouth. 33 Siskins on a 22 inch platform feeder devouring sunflower hearts and black oil in the back yard. In the front yard, another 28 feasting on the same diet. They are ignoring the nyjer feeder completely. Where do they put all that food? How come they don�t weigh 25 grams each with all the food they pack away?
Cornell states �Following a large irruptive winter flight, some individuals may stay near a dependable food source and breed far south of the normal breeding range.� So keep the food flowing if you can afford it.
I '�rescued� one the other day. Even though my feeder is only 3 feet from the window, one managed to knock itself silly with a window strike. I went outside and picked it up, brought it in and held it for a while keeping it nice and warm. After about 10 minutes it still had not come around so I transferred it to a small box with Kleenex. It took nearly an hour to regain its senses until it could fly away. Glad it made it.
Jim Wilson
Queenstown
From: Sean McCandless
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 6:42 AM
To: <mdbirding...>
Subject: [MDBirding] High Maintenance Pine Siskin's
Hosting 35-40 Pine Siskin's is getting very expensive. I had 2 new nygar seed bags out and filled my other feeders with oil sunflower seeds and when I got home from work the sunflowers were gone and the nyger seeds were devoured to nearly 1/3 left.
Other cool feeder birds that are adding to my feed bill 5 Blue Jay's, 6-10 Purple Finches, 6-10 Goldfinches, 6-12 House Finches, 2 Red breasted Nuthatches, Lots of Titmice.
It's a good problem to have. I just need to secure a grant to aquire more bird seed for this winter. :-)
Sean McCandless
Elkton MD
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