Dear Readers, I am in a pensive mood today – I’m off to Dorset for a few days to visit Mum and Dad’s grave, and to reconnect with some friends in the area. Before I go, I look out of the window to see that the birds really have learned how the squirrel-proof feeder works, and seem to enjoy being relatively protected within the ‘cage’. I can also report that no squirrels have managed to break in since I’ve learned to put the top on properly.

But today, I watched as a siskin approached the feeder, and tried to work out whether she could risk going past those bars to the tasty food behind. In the past I have remarked that siskins only ever seem to visit the feeder when the weather is terrible, usually when it’s snowing, so this was a big surprise.

Siskins in the snow

She stuck her head through the bars and withdrew several times, and then, gaining her courage, she bounced in, took a seed and retreated to the safety of the lilac bush. Then a male siskin hopped down and did the same. Male and female siskins often travel together, and there was something moving about these two. You could almost hear them conferring over whether it was safe to feed.

Of course, by the time I’d got my camera they’d both disappeared, to be replaced by the bolshie little blue tit in the photo above.

While siskins will eat sunflower seeds, they are said to prefer nyjer, and the seeds of birch and alder. Dominic Couzens, in his lovely book ‘The Secret Life of Garden Birds’, mentions that back in the 1960s, people largely offered food to birds in little red plastic net bags (you might remember them if you’re as old as I am). In the brutal winter of 1963 many people started to feed birds, and this is the first time that siskins were spotted in gardens. Couzens has a theory that maybe those red bags looked like enormous supersized alder ‘cones’, and so the siskins couldn’t believe their luck. Impossible to prove, but a great idea.

A male siskin during a very cold snap.

The siskins favourite food, however, is the seed of the cones of the Sitka spruce, so they are most commonly seen in conifer plantations. The British Trust for Ornithology’s research seems to indicate that birds turn up in the garden when seed supplies are low, or when the birds are migrating – they seem to turn up in gardens in the south of England during the late spring. Interestingly, they also visit more often when it’s rainy, and the pine cones are closed. If you’re ever lucky enough to see a family of siskins, they’re likely to be residents who are breeding locally.

The garden always throws up surprises – just when I think I know what to expect, someone new turns up. These little birds have thoroughly cheered me up, and I am most grateful to them.

If you’d like to read a bit more about the siskin, have a read of my post ‘The Chizhik-Pyzhik’. 

From left to right – male siskin, female siskin and male chaffinch.