The Siskins Are Back
Changes in the weather often mean changes to the varieties of birds we see around the hide. This winter has been no exception. We saw fleeting glimpses of Siskins back in the Autumn but they were few and far between. Winter has brought a change to that. We now have at least four Siskins visiting the feeders and perches. Where once they were only occasional visitors disappearing in a flash, now they spend up to ten minutes or more feeding on the Niger seeds before taking a breather, only to return again a few minutes later. This pattern continues throughout the day interspersed with aggressive tweeting at the Goldfinches who want to share the Niger seeds.
Exciting as it is to have these beautiful, golden finches visiting daily, getting photographs of them on the perches is a challenge indeed! Most other birds will first land on a perch or even go from perch to feeder and back and repeat. The Siskins however will head straight to the feeder, set up shop and not give up the prized position even in the face of fierce competition from the Goldfinches. The game is a long waiting one! At various points during the day the number of birds increases quite substantially especially when the Chaffinches all show up together. This is the tipping point. The number of birds far outnumbers the number of feeding stations and the competition becomes quite intense. Rather than take off back to the trees and hedgerow behind the hide, they seem more content to use the perches, albeit reluctantly and only briefly! The small Ash tree sapling seems a favourite as does my trusty rotten mossy stump. This has proved particularly photogenic for almost all of the small birds – coal, blue and great tits seem to enjoy straddling the woody spikes on its top. The Goldfinches too are regular sitters and now the Siskins have adopted it as standby perch until a feeding station becomes available. It’s a great perch and it’s almost guaranteed to give successful images any day of the week. But presumably I’ll have to retire the perch before too long when either I and my customers get bored of it or it finally rots into submission!
I’ll stick with it for now though as the Siskins have taken at least partial ownership of it.
It’s great to know that we have both males and females visiting the hide. Females don’t have the black head that the male has and are duller in colour. She is also more streaked than her male counterpart.