On Sun, 24 Nov 1996 BirdAHikes at aol.com wrote:

> What a thrill I just had.
>
> We live in Eastern Washington where it has snowed about 25 inches in the last
> few days and the birds are very hungry. We feed black oil sunflower seed and
> mixed seed in two platform feeders, suet in two suet feeders, and thistle in
> a tube feeder.
>
> I went out to fill the tube feeder and a Pine Siskin was eating and didn't
> want to move. He allowed me to stroke him and he stayed on the perch while I
> was filling the feeder with thistle!
>
> I feel so privileged!
>
> Maia Kelly
> Selah, WA
>

In spring, we had a Pine Siskin who visited the feeder a lot that we
called "Runty". While we never got to stroke him, he was very hesitant to
move. Runty would (if he cared at all) just move to the side of the
feeder away from us, so as to hide us from his view--kind of a "If I don't
see 'em, they ain't there" thing (again, an apology to the ethologists).

-Pat
Moscow, ID