Living on the reserve it is easy to become a little blasé about some of the wildlife we have around here. Pink-footed Goose? Sure, over there by the other ten thousand Pink-footed Geese. Whooper Swans? 300 this morning. American Wigeon? Green-winged Teal? Two a penny. Old hat. Six weeks ago I hadn’t seen any of these birds before in my life. Ditto Otter, Tree Sparrow, Woodcock, Long-tailed Duck, Slavonian Grebe, Brambling, and so on and so forth. I could actually just fill this post with them all, but that would be a bit boring.
One bird I never get blasé about is Siskins. They are regulars on our feeders, but they like to keep us on our toes by disappearing for a week or so for no apparent reason. They pop up again, out of nowhere, like they have been there the whole time. Down south I would come across Siskins maybe once or twice a year, so having them around all of the time is a bit of a treat. With the possible exception of Serins (tiny little balls of fluff and nonsense you’ve probably come across if you’ve ever gone on holiday in France) they are my favourite finches. It helps that they are good-looking things. Siskins are somehow both smart and scruffy and exotic – like Sinatra after a few too many in some bar in Vegas, or Bond after he has defeated a super villain. The only thing that would make me like them more is if they were capable of sticking up for themselves a bit. With all the good will in the world, they’re not exactly masters of the feeding station.
I was in the process of taking the pictures for this post this morning when a roving band of Long-tailed Tits passed through. This is another of my favourite garden birds. If I'd been a little quicker you would have had a post about them instead.
So yes. Moral of the story is, things are pretty easy to overlook, but when they’re gone you’ll miss them. Or something. Like a little green and black finch on your feeder.