Snow makes Pine Siskins grumpy

We had a snow storm roll through Sunday night into Monday morning that brought us about 6 inches of fluffy snow. The snow also brought a mass of birds to my feeders including Fox sparrow, Red winged blackbird, tons of white throated sparrows, Juncos and a single Carolina wren along with the usual suspects – Titmice, Blue jays, Chickadees et al. This would have been a usual winter storm as far as the birding landscape was concerned had it not been for the feisty and raucous Pine Siskins that are still mobbing my thistle feeders.

It turns out that bad weather brings out the worst in the Pine Siskins. As it is they are pretty pushy when it comes to time spent with THEIR food. Well the cold weather made all of them especially grumpy and brought out their street fighter instinct. One Siskin was especially ready to fight ANYTHING that moved. He would hunker down and wait for an unsuspecting Junco to land on HIS platform feeder.

Although it was snowing at a good clip it didn’t seem to bug the Siskin in the least. He launched one aerial assault after another.