On 3/5/2012 10:01 PM, Bill Addison wrote: This has been the winter of finches, flock after flock of them. They are eating up to 4 litres of black sunflower seed a day, if we give them that many. These photos have pine grosbeaks, redpolls and pine siskins. The male pine grosbeaks (red ones) started heading north by the second week in February and their numbers are now almost zero. The females and immature pine grosbeak numbers started decreasing by the end of the third week in February. There are still some of them left but tomorrow is supposed to +6 C as is Thursday, so my guess is that the pine grosbeaks will be gone by the end of the week. Redpolls are still here in fair numbers. Redpolls are scrappy little critters and we watched a few of them go beak to beak with pine grosbeaks and win. Chickadees have been scarce this winter, perhaps because they don't stand a chance against the other species. We had a few intermittent evening grosbeaks. Hairy woodpeckers and red-breasted nuthatches were regular visitors. The nuthatches existed almost exclusively on deer suet while the woodpeckers ate sunflower seeds almost exclusively, rarely visiting the suet. We have rarely had as many winter finches as this year.
Bill is a professional naturalist with great memory and keen insight. Take his word for what he says.If interested, Bil sent some great feeder pictures of Pine Grosbeak that I could forward if you contact me at [email protected] Cheers,John Did I forget to mention that Bill lives about 20 miles north of the northernmost point of Lake Superior, north of Thunder Bay, Ontario -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
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