eurasian siskin

Siskin

Todays photos are all of birds warming up on a nice bright day. Rare to have such a clear day in Scotland.

The acrobatics some birds do for a tasty morsel.

Sorry I haven't browsed today. Big grocery round, then baking for the weekend (we don't get the Thursday off here, so I do Thanksgiving on the weekend). Probably won't be able to browse tomorrow either, but should be able to do on Sunday, even though for COVID reasons we're splitting our dinner...

A short break and meeting on their way to far south ...

eating seeds of some sort of ... hmmm, I'm guessing knotweed ...? There was a lot of it growing in an empty lot between the botanical garden and a shopping mall, and a lot of Siskins and Sparrows eating it.

on birch seeds. Back in August and September I could reliably find Siskins (along with Blue and Great Tits, Tree Sparrows, Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs) feasting - some on the catkins, some on insects, and some on a bit of both - in the the birches that line the main walkways around the cemetery.

A Siskin nibbling on some sort of Hieracium seeds (not sure precisely which species - not Dandelion, but one of Dandelion's cousins). Baldr's Brow (aka scentless false mayweed, scentless mayweed, scentless chamomile, wild chamomile, mayweed, false chamomile - Tripleurospermum inodorum) for size...

Not just one acrobat in the act, but a cast of a hundred or so. Here are two. We had tickets to see Cirque de Soleil this coming weekend. Cancelled, of course. Or perhaps they're still calling it "postponed" ... indefinitely. So I guess I'm compensating when interpreting these shots as...

My big find that day was on my way back out through the cemetery. I was walking along a row of birches and saw they were packed up in the "rafters" with Siskins (plus at least half a dozen Blue Tits and a Chiffchaff or two or three). They were high up and for the most part well hidden...

Another Siskin seems bemused by the impatient one's Nuthatch imitation.

the Siskin tried a (literally) different approach.

The Siskin seems rather exasperated with how long the Redpoll is taking at the feeder ;)

In Norwegian, Siskins and Redpolls share the name "Sisik", but with different color qualifiers. Common Redpoll is Grsisik (grey siskin), Lesser Redpoll is Brunsisik (brown siskin), and Siskins are Grnnsisik (green siskin). Do you see these as green???

While the male Bullfinches may get most of the attention and are certainly a beacon with their bright red breasts, the male Siskins are also a bright spot and a joy to see in the dark woods around the feeders at Ringve. Now ... time to get moving. I've overslept this morning. The weather looks...

The area under the seed feeders at Ringve is thickly carpeted now with sunflower seed husks, and sometimes whole seeds or dropped bits of shelled seeds. Isn't there a children's book series about the carpet people? Perhaps that was inspired by ground-feeding birds, with messy eaters at the...

temperatures dropped down and the siskins returned back to the garden in good numbers today. We also has several hawfinches.

Get off the feeder! It's my turn now! The window doesn't make quite as good a background as the wall, but I couldn't resist this "pose".

It does make a pretty background, when I manage to find a "window" through the thicket of twigs and a bird perched low enough down that I get something more than just its belly.

we're getting quite used to each other by now. the main difference between the two of us is that she can decide at any time to leave the garden ...

we still have a few female siskins regularly visiting the garden.