Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Pine Siskins
Date: Nov 30 20:48:50 2005
From: Michael Hobbs - birdmarymoor at verizon.net


At first glance at my data, it seemed that Pine Siskins are always common
in fall. However, a year-by-year breakdown shows a rather different story.

Some years are good and some years are bad.

By the end of November in 2004, I'd had 8 weeks of solid Pine Siskin
sightings. But in 1997, as with this year, I've had none.

Here's a quick look at the monthly sightings by year from my data
(showing the number of weeks in that month that I recorded PISI):

Oct Nov Dec
1995 3 2 2
1996 1 1 0
1997 0 0 2
1998 2 4 3
1999 0 2 5
2000 2 3 4
2001 4 3 4
2002 2 4 4
2003 1 3 5
2004 4 4 5
2005 0 0 -

This data includes my weekly Marymoor visits (so I'm certain to have had at
least 1 trip per week per year), plus observations at my feeders, plus any
other birding trips I went on. Simply looking at whether I found siskins
anywhere, anytime during each week should help mask differences in "observer
effort" - that is, even if I had multiple siskin sightings within a
particular week, it only gets 1 "point" above.

So, this looks like a bad year. Are they dead, or elsewhere?

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Henne Queisser" <henneq at comcast.net>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 8:12 PM
Subject: Pine Siskins (Re: [Tweeters] Non=Marine Annas)


> Mary's comment about the lack of pine siskins is consistent with our
> experience here on Mercer Island--no pine siskins for quite some time. Up
> until last year they were the second most abundant bird at our feeders,
> house finches being the most common.
>
> Anyone know what happened to them?
>
> --Henne Queisser
> Mercer Island