Subject: [Tweeters] 100s of siskins in Centralia today
Date: Jan 18 21:17:22 2005
From: J Bonham - jvbonham at msn.com


Today was a red letter day for me. Since the immature Cooper's Hawk was "stranded" in my quince bush in the front yard on Nov. 7, 2004, and was soon found by an adult Cooper's Hawk, Centralia has had an intense change of bird population. My feeders, usually needing to be refilled twice a week, suddenly needed cleaning once a week only for routine sterilizing. Only the peanut feeder for the jays needed to be filled on a routine daily schedule. All other feeders were basically totally abandoned. Over the past month, birds have been drifting back slowly. Last week I even awakened to the song of house sparrows. What a wonderful sound. (And I do not have any afinitey for these birds!)

As I awoke this morning, it was to the sound of a feathered little body hitting my glass bedroom doors. Obviously that of a Pine Siskin. Trying to find my glasses to see what had happened, I was aware of the cheerful, though not recently heard, zyreeee, which to me sounds much more like meeeeee? Sure sounded like a siskin, and my first thought was that my favorite little siskin, Miss Sis, that has stayed here despite the hawks, had come to another near tragedy, if not total tragedy. But the sound effects continued. And multiplied! (This started about 10:00 am, as I somehow was allowed to sleep in after an extremely tiring day yesterday. Not a common occurrence here with my puppy!)

After finding my glasses and being able to see, I was totally astounded by what I did see. There were eight siskins sitting in the 12" platform feeder, which I keep filled with black sunflower seeds. As I watched, these were followed by more, and more, and more..... Within an hour there were so many siskins that they were uncountable. At least by me. ALL the feeders were totally covered with Pine Siskins before the day was out. Since I have a total of 12 feeders in the side yard and one on the front porch, I have never before seen every feeder filled to total capacity, at least not at the same time. Not only were all the feeders totally occupied, but the ground was covered wing tip to wing tip with siskins. It reminded me of the scene from Indiana Jones with the snakes entwined throughout the entire floor. There wasn't an inch of the ground under the feeders, from the boat to the porch, about fifteen feet by twenty five feet, that wasn't covered entirely with siskins. Not only was the ground covered, but whatever birds weren't on perches or clinging to the wire feeders were flying from feeder to feeder like a living cloud of siskins. There was absolutely no way I could even begin to count this mass of siskins, but they were at least in the hundreds before the day ended.

When I first woke up and there were just eight, I noticed that instead of being on the thistle feeders, these siskins were all going for the black sunflower seeds. They were originally in the 12" platform feeder that I keep black sunflower seeds for the chickadees. But it was as if these birds were absolutely starved for these sunflower seeds. As I continued to watch, more and more siskins came into both of the platform feeders. The 18" platform feeder is generally just used for peanuts for the jays, but since the Purple Finches have been here in increasing numbers, we have added black sunflower seeds for them. What was so unusual to me was that with the rapidly increasing number of siskins, none of them were interested, at first, in my three thistle feeders. ( I have two 18" tube feeders with 8 feeding stations apiece and a 10" wire mesh feeder with no perches. These are filled with only thistle seed.) These were the feeders that generally the siskins head for first, and fight accordingly for the best perches available. It was astounding to me that the siskins seemed starved, and it sure looked like that was a literal term, for the black sunflower seeds. After a couple of hours, the siskins began to turn to the thistle. By then they had emptied about 1/3 of the six station tube feeder with black sunflower seeds. It has individual compartments, and refills the stations automatically as the seed is emptied. Also a small 10" wire mesh feeder with no perches was about 1/2 full, and it had just been totally filled this last weekend. I have no idea how much of the platform feeders were emptied by then, as the wooden rims hid that from me. There were both males and females, with what seemed like about a 10/1 ratio of females to males. Also, I spread a general mix plus just millet seeds on the ground under my feeding trees for the juncos. This had just been done Sunday.

An important point to me was this: the siskins showed first that they NEEDED the black sunflower seeds, as that is what they devoured first. After the sunflower seeds, they went on to the thistle feeders. Then when they had the thistle feeders well on the way to being emptied, they detoured on to the suet feeder. Also I have an 18" feeder with a protective "squirrel cage" around it that I had just filled with shelled peanuts, and a small 10" peanut feeder for the Downy's that were here before the hawks arrival. These became the chickadee's favorite feeders. A few siskins tried these peanut feeders, but were not at all partial to the peanuts, using the feeders as just perches to await an opening at one of the other feeders. Never before have I ever noticed the siskins at my suet feeder, although this may be just a lack of observation on my part.

In all the years that I have had a bird feeder until now that my side yard IS bird feeders, never before have I ever had the numbers of Pine Siskins that were here today. As the siskins are the first ones to leave if there is even a chance of danger, I have looked forward eagerly to their return. Well, today they did return! In more numbers than I have ever seen before! It was as if they were playing a frantic game of "musical chairs-feeders" the entire time they were here, which was until after 4:00 pm when Shindu asked to go outside. This did scare them off for the final time of the day. They had been frightened off a few times during the day by the jays as the jays came and went, but were always back within a few minutes of the departure of the jays.

Has anyone else around Centralia, Chehalis, or outside areas close by Centralia noticed any of the numbers of siskins that I had here today, or does anyone have any experience as to why the siskins returned and immediately went for the sunflower seeds instead of the thistle like they have done normally in the past? If this is pertinent to anyone nearby, I live within a few blocks of the college.

jan bonham
Centralia, WA