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Pine Siskin (at last)




The cool, wet weather of early February finally brought in my 
long-awaited flock of American Goldfinches; in the past four days 
(4-7 Feb) I've banded 97 of them at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont 
Natural History near York SC. Coincidentally, I had to refill my 
thistle seed feeder for the first time in several winters.

And, along with the goldfinches today there was a single Pine 
Siskin--the first since 21 February 1990 and only the ninth in the 
past eight years. This trend is quite a change, since Pine Siskins 
were among my most dependable winter birds in the mid- to late-1980s. 
In fact, thanks to numbers like 486 banded in the winter of 1986-87, 
Pine Siskins are still my seventh most commonly captured bird with 
1,538 banded over the past 21 years.

A photo of today's illustrious Pine Siskin will appear in the next 
edition of "This Week at Hilton Pond."

For an up-to-date chart depicting the most commonly banded birds at 
Hilton Pond Center, see 
http://www.hiltonpond.org/Ch02BandSpeciesTotals.html .


Happy Nature Watching!

BILL
-- 

BILL HILTON JR., "The Piedmont Naturalist"
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road, York, South Carolina 29745 USA
hilton@hiltonpond.org, (803) 684-5852, eFax: (503) 218-0845

Please visit our web sites at http://www.hiltonpond.org and
http://www.rubythroat.org

"Never trust a person too lazy to get up for sunrise or too busy to
watch the sunset."					BHjr.