After a waxwing winter this is a siskin spring. I usually see a few of these beautiful finches each year but the last few weeks have been exceptional. My BTO GardenBirdWatch (GBW) records show the first arrived in the first week of January and numbers built up to 22 by the end of March. The bird in the photo above had the misfortune to bang his head on the kitchen window but he seemed to make a full recovery.
I have two six port seed feeders, amongst others, but never quite managed a photo with six siskins in one go - there's always a hungry goldfinch spoiling the show.
I am not the only one to have seen a lot of siskins this year. The BTO GBW website shows records for the North East. This is the number of gardens seeing siskins - twice as many as average.
And this is the number per garden, four times higher than average.
My impression that this is a particularly good year for siskins is backed up by this graph showing data from the last 25 years.
I read that the probable explanation for the influx is the persistent wet weather. Sitka spruce pine cones open in dry weather but remain closed when it is wet so the siskins run short of food and turn to gardens instead. They mostly live and breed in the conifer forests in Northumberland so I expect they will disappear shortly.
Likewise I’ve had loads of Siskins in my garden since late January. Brilliant, and I’ll miss them when they disappear
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