Showing posts with label Redpoll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Redpoll. Show all posts

Saturday, January 19, 2008

O, Happy Day! Redpolls in Southern PA!



O, happy day!


O, happy, happy day!


O, happy happy, happy day!


(Can you tell I'm happy yet?)


I have redpolls at my feeders!

I have redpolls at my feeders!


I have suspected (hoped) for a week or so that redpolls have been visiting my feeders. About 10 days or so ago the niger seed in the tube feeder began to be eaten at a much faster rate than has been typical. I knew something was eating it, and the two siskins and two goldfinch that are occasional visitors didn't seem capable of working on it that much alone.



But with working during the day, and darkness already settled in by the time I get home in the evenings, I haven't been able to see what was making the seed in that tube feeder go down so fast. Naturally, I have been hoping for redpolls.



I've seen redpolls at my cabin feeders exactly once before today, and I didn't have a camera in my hand for those few, brief moments.

So this morning I'm sitting in the cabin with one eye on my book and one eye on the feeders, just sitting there reading, and you know, hoping. And then a sudden flurry of several species of birds bounces into the feeders and there they were. Three redpolls!


So I look at them happily for a few seconds, and then I wonder, do I dare get up off the sofa, walk over to the kitchen table where the camera is and try to get a few photos? Yes, I think, I've seen them now, I know they were here. It's time to try for a photo. So I roll off the sofa to the floor and crawl over to the kitchen, where I retrieve the camera. Then I turn the camera on and get it ready, figuring that when I appear up at the window the birds will likely fly away. I move slowly, rise up in front of the window, and the birds are still there. I take one shot right away, hoping to get something if the birds scatter. But they don't. I manage to get several shots of them at the feeders before they wander off into the woods.


The one in the second photo looks a bit suspicious, doesn't he? But he's actually looking at something down on the ground.


Hooray! I've seen redpolls at the cabin! And gotten photos!