| |||||||
Return to Birds
 Redpolls, 4 March 2008 In February and March 2007 there was an irruption of Siskins and Redpolls in the area. Although we had Siskins for the majority of recording weeks over the years, we had very rarely seen Redpolls. They had occasionally arrived with Siskins, but did not feed in the garden until we put out nyger. Numbers started increasing in late February 2007, and by the first week in March we were getting by far the largest counts we had ever had of both these species - 37 Siskins and 16 Redpolls. Numbers of both species remained high for a period of about 3 weeks. I scattered nyger on our ground feeder to give a wider feeding area for the Redpolls. I also started recording daily instead of weekly, and the maximum numbers seen at once were recorded daily until the end of March.. On 23rd February 2008 we suddenly had a huge rise in numbers again. The numbers were even higher, with 45 Siskins present on 23rd February and 37 Redpolls on 12th March. Once again, the large numbers continued for about 3 weeks. We had no large counts in 2009, but in 2010 they arrived earlier - in mid-January - and with even greater numbers of Redpolls. While the largest count of Siskins was 34 on 24th January (down on last year), on 5th February we counted 84 Rdepolls. Once again, numbers dropped off after about 3 weeks, but this time they rose again a week later with 71 Redpolls present on 16th February. I addition, we had intermittent visits from one or two Bramblings, which we had not seen before. In 2011 these species arrived even earlier, with double numbers of both Siskins and Redpolls present before the end of December 2010. In addition, we began to have larger numbers of Bramblings, with 8 present on 31st December and 10 on 8th January.  Siskins and Redpolls, 12 March 2008
*includes one possible Mealy Redpoll  Redpoll, 5 Feb 2010
|