Subject: [Tweeters] Grosbeaks in Redmond, siskin behavior question
Date: May 10 00:11:47 2010
From: Doreen Gillespie - dorgilles at gmail.com


2 pairs of Evening Grosbeaks brightening up the feeder today, SW Redmond.
Possibly more, but only 2.2 confirmed at one time. Single female yesterday.

The siskins have been hanging out for nearly a month now, but it wasn't
until a few days ago that I started getting frequent window hits (two dead,
three stunned/recovered, many more hit and gone, hopefully okay). I tried a
variety of visual barriers, and I also moved the feeder much farther from
the house--nothing has helped. I finally got a screen to put in front of
the sliding glass door, hopefully reducing the worst reflection area. If
the screen doesn't help, the niger seed may come down.

In puzzling over the fact that my window hits appear to be exclusively
siskins, I was thinking about the scatter/escape behavior of different
birds. When the siskins are alarmed, they fly off in all directions from
the feeder, whereas the other birds (chickadees, finches, towhees, sparrows,
bushtits, etc.) typically fly to the nearest dense foliage in the yard.
Does anyone on Tweeters know if siskins characteristically employ a
"sunburst" pattern of dispersal when alarmed, possibly developed to confuse
predators? Or could this be affected by the lack of nearby conifers, which
they may prefer for protection? Their panicky, erratic alarm behavior seems
at odds with letting me approach to within a few feet when I'm filling the
feeder, but they clearly don't see me at a predator!

Doreen Gillespie
Redmond, WA
dorgilles at gmail.com
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