Pine Siskins in The Backyard...

This evening, I was going to write a summary of all the birds seen in the backyard this week. However, that will have to wait for possibly tomorrow as I just have to share some photos with my readers of what I witnessed this afternoon at my feeders. After hearing and reading reports about the great flights witnessed today at Cape May NJ and at Robert Moses State Park LI, I wondered what birds might venture inland. My plans were to hit the coast this afternoon, but I decided to check on the backyard feeders to see if they needed refilling. When I first got to the feeders I noticed there were not many birds around and as I went to one of the seed bins, I realized the cause, a cat was lurking near the feeders and took off once it got wind of me. As if on cue, the backyard became noisy and I immediately picked up the sounds of first Goldinfches, White-throated Sparrows, Juncos and House Finches. Then, I head Purple Finches and a sound that give me pause, I moved to get a look at the source. Yes! They were Pine Siskins and quite a few. In one view, I quickly counted 9 of them.  I ended up counting 18 Pine Siskins, but felt there were more, a Cooper's Hawk came in briefly and scattered everything and I did not think they all came back...at least when I was present.  Also in attendance were 6 Purple Finches, 4 females and two males.  Here are some photos from this afternoon.

Female Purple Finch on a Elderberry Shrub

Female Purple Finch on a Cherry Tree

Female Purple Finch

Pine Siskin on an Elderberry Shrub

Pine Siskins, American Goldfinch and Purple Finches

If the tube feeders got too crowed some moved to the mesh feeder

There are more Pine Siskins on the other side of this feeder.

There was hardly room at the platform feeders for all of the Pine Siskins.

Tags: Backyard Birds, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch