Last week, I set up a new niger feeding station at Yew View. We have a lot of goldfinch visiting varying feeding stations around the garden, but I was sure that redpoll and siskin should be around in the garden too. Many of the feeding stations are quite near the house and are dominated by other, larger species. I decided to set up a station in a quiet part of the garden and put out just niger. It is really only the finches that like this seed, so I hoped I could attract the redpoll and siskin here.
I hung three niger feeders on a tree and then had to tether the bottoms with some string to stop them swinging violently as the site I chose is quite exposed and close to the river. Part of the reason for choosing this location as well, is that I could turn the PTZ (pan tilt zoom) camera toward these feeders to monitor the visitors.
This week, I returned to Yew View, filled up the feeders, as they were half empty and went upstairs at the end of the day to check the footage for the week. As I sat at the computer, watching the feeders I’ve on the monitors, I was delighted to see a redpoll! I couldn’t believe it! As I was actually sat there, I was able to control the camera and zoom in! Excuse the rather clumsy controlling of the camera… I need some more practise!
I could hardly believe it! In less than a week, we were already attracting the species I had most hoped to see and a new one for the site, taking the count up to 66 species!
I am pretty sure these are lesser redpoll. The Mealy or Common redpoll is actually less common in the UK. The lesser redpolls have a ‘warm’ plumage of golds and browns, yet the Common redpoll has a ‘colder’ look to the plumage.. more silvery.
I payed back the footage for the week and was able to see that they first appeared on these feeder on Tuesday and have been visiting ever since. There were at least 3 individuals… Here are a couple of clips lifted showing them feeding with the goldfinches and greenfinches.
Hopefully, we will be seeing a lot more of these beautiful little finches over the winter… and let’s hope the siskin turn up to join them very soon as well!
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