Yesterday was a great day here too, I finally saw a siskin at our feeder! I
have been tempted to respond to the "last ... to see a siskin" string, but was
confident it would eventually happen. We have a variety of feeder stations
and I have been looking a lot - but only when I am home. It's an important
distinction, because my wife had occasionally seen groups of finches at the
feeders (2 or 3 times) in the mid-day. Since she does not try to distinguish
species and I had not seen this happen, I was guessing we may have a siskin
or two around and it was just a matter of time for me to see one here.
For reference, we normally have about 3-4 goldfinches and 6-7 house finches
here daily (this fall) that eat the safflower and black-oil sunflower about
equally. But yesterday at about 11:00 am the number doubled when a "group"
showed up, and I was here! Sure enough there was a siskin. Now I'm curious
to see them again, since this "group" was not really all in one flock; they were
here at the same time, but left variously. The purple finches and siskins
seemed to be independent; the siskins were the first to leave and the purple
finches left here last. The "group" was here about 45 minutes. The most
birds counted at one time were: Purple Finch 4; House Finch 9; Pine Siskin 2;
A. Goldfinch 9. We also had a bonus!, our first Fox Sparrow of the season (2).
Cheers!
Jeff Shenot
Croom MD
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