Buses

Siskins are like buses, you wait for ages (5 years in my case) for one to turn up and then two come along at once. Well, not quite at once, but nevertheless, this male Siskin was seen on one of my feeders at the weekend, just a few days after seeing a female. This represents a huge increase in the sightings of this bird in my garden, although I haven't seen either bird since.

The Bramblings are still coming, but on Sunday we had 4 of the little beauties, 3 females and 1 male, still not in breeding plumage, but getting more stunning by the day!

Male Brambling

Female Brambling

Unusual garden visitors

A couple of weeks ago I awoke to a good few inches of snow. The bird numbers in the garden consequently increased and with it I got a few birds that are good to see anywhere, but especially in a small garden in the north of Peterborough. Whilst nothing scarce or rare, seeing a female Siskin for only the second time in 5 years was a bonus and then a flock of 5 Redwing flew in, obviously looking for an easy meal. The female Brambling was also paying a visit accompanied by up to 30 Chaffinches, although there was no sign of the male.

Female Brambling

Female Brambling

Redwing

Female Siskin

The weather this week, whilst not snowing, has still been extremely wintery and consequently the bird numbers have still been pretty high. 16 Reed Buntings is a new garden record and there are still 35+ Chaffinches visiting regularly. This week though saw the return of the male Brambling, starting to show brighter plumage detail, although he is still not in breeding plumage as his head would be completely black and his bill would also be fully black. Still a beautiful bird though.

Male Brambling

Surprise garden visitor

We have a few different species of birds visit our feeders, but today we had a visit from a bird we have not seen in the garden before, a Siskin. I noticed a squabble going on between a Goldfinch and another bird on the nyjer seed feeder and on closer inspection this revealed itself to be a Siskin! I quickly set my digiscoping gear up, before the bird flew and managed to get a couple of shots of it feeding on my sunflower hearts feeder before the local Sparrowhawk buzzed by scattering everything. Unfortunately the bird stayed on the `wrong` side of the feeder giving me only glimpses of this splendidly bright bird.

The Siskin is a member of the finch family and at first glance can be mistaken for a Greenfinch, but on closer inspection it is a much smaller, slimmer bird than its bulkier cousin. They breed in coniferous forests mostly in the north and west of the country, but spend the winter in all parts of the British Isles with some having migrated from Europe.

The species is not rare and in the winter months is fairly common in the area with flocks of a couple of hundred being present at Woodwalton Fen and Ferry Meadows CP. This bird, however was on its own and a welcome addition to my garden list.