January 18, 2009 – 8:26 pm
This week was one of the coldest weeks Atlanta has had in a few years. The birds were eating seed like crazy. They also discovered our heated bird bath in large numbers as well as the little feeder we stuck to the sliding door to the deck. I tried to take pictures of as many birds as I could but they were always the same birds! Here are a few of the better ones I got:
Our recent invasion of Pine Siskin is a little unusual from what I understand. I guess they don’t usually appear down here in such large numbers. Here they are on our thistle feeder:
Here’s one of my favorite pictures to date. I got lucky with this guy who was sitting on the bird bath.
Here’s one of the Pine Siskin eating in our “stick on” window feeder.
This Eastern Bluebird was very interested in what was going on in the house.
I’m getting better at this bird picture thing but I still take a bunch in order to get a few keepers. Hopefully you enjoy the pictures as well 
January 3, 2009 – 11:25 am
It is a rainy, misty morning here in Atlanta. Pam and I got up a little late and noticed a huge number of birds in the yard. We weren’t sure what they were but our thought is that they are Pine Siskin. What do you think?
Swarming The Sweetgum
The birds were all over the seed pods of the big Sweetgum trees we have, hanging upside down on them and pecking away. I tried to get some pictures but they were too far away and the camera didn’t focus too well, at least on full auto. Then, all of a sudden they all flew to the platform feeder and began eating. I managed to get a couple of pictures before they flew off. Now the question is, what were they?
Bird Identification Time
Pam thought they might be Pine Siskin right off the bat. I wasn’t so sure. I uploaded the clearest picture I had to flickr. here it is:
After looking at the picture and our Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America
we both settled on them being Pine Siskin.
Are We Correct
What do you think? Are these Pine Siskin, or maybe a bunch of Goldfinches? They seem to have too much streaking on them to be Goldfinches. But, we’ve only been birdirs for 4 weeks so we very easily could be wrong. My guess is that once again, Pam’s intial guess is right and I was wrong (as usual)
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