After a 7-year hiatus, Linda and I set up bird feeder stations last
weekend at our new home in the Shenandoah community at Lake
Frederick. (The hiatus was due to a ban on feeders in our former
Reston townhouse community.) Within minutes, our new feeders were
visited by a small mixed flock of Pine Siskin and Goldfinch. At last,
we had an opportunity to see the Siskins that were so abundantly
reported across Virginia this year.
Over the next few days, the Siskin mob increased to as many as 16
birds contesting the perches on our two feeders. Then came this
morning. We have not seen such a mob of birds (of any kind) as
visited the feeders today. Flocks of (mainly) Siskin were shuttling
back and forth between our feeders and the trees at the back of our
lot. As best we could count, there were between 30 and 40 Siskin in
total, but it could have been even more. Three or four Goldfinch were
also trying to crash the party. And then out of nowhere - in a quiet
moment - came a beautiful male Purple Finch, who all too soon departed
as the next wave of birds came in. We then re-scanned the "Siskin
mob" to see if any were actually female Purple or House Finch but
could not pick out anything but Siskin in the milling crowd.
Our speculation is that our local Siskin group has been busily loading
up at our feeders for imminent migration, and that the sudden increase
in numbers today may be from additional groups of migrants stopping by
from points south.
Mike
D. Michael Reyman
dreyman@xxxxxx
www.reymanphoto.net
