chaffinch – Donich Website https://www.donich.co.uk Argyll wildlife and nature as seen on the banks of the Donich Water Wed, 27 Jul 2016 19:56:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.4 Suddenly Chaffinches https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2016/07/27/suddenly-chaffinches/ https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2016/07/27/suddenly-chaffinches/#respond Wed, 27 Jul 2016 19:56:10 +0000 http://www.donich.co.uk/?p=5831 Since early summer, the normally prolific chaffinches had virtually disappeared on our bird feeders, and had been supplanted by huge numbers of siskins. For some reason, although they are a larger bird, the chaffinches seem rather scared of the little siskins.

Then this week, within the span of 48 hours, all the siskins have departed, and the chaffinches are back in force (nearly 100 of them feeding this afternoon). This is quite odd, as I don’t think siskins really migrate (although apparently they are more common in the south during the winter).

Anyway – much as I like the siskins they are terribly messy birds which drop so many seeds that last week I had to spend over an our cleaning the feeding area out. The chaffinches on the other hand eat every single seed and leave no mess at all.

We also have at least six immature jays at the moment. They are quite funny because they haven’t learned to be fearful yet, and this afternoon I was watching a pair of them trying (successfully) to raid the fat balls which are supposed to just be for the tits.

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