Notes from the Feeders - Siskins

Last winter was a good siskin winter - here anyway - and at times we had thirty or forty in the garden. They are lovely birds to watch, very agile and quite attractive, small finches not much more than blue tit size and just as good at making use of the feeders. They were with us from soon after Christmas, and then later in the winter they were joined by a few lesser redpolls. We saw our last redpolls a month ago, but a few siskins have stayed around, just as they did last year. We probably have a couple of pairs, and they were around this morning. Last year they certainly must have bred close by, as just for a while we had young birds. By the end of the summer any siskins we might have had have moved on, and we don't get to see them again in the garden until winter is well under way.

These were actually photographed in our previous garden, just up the road . . .