Winter has come

Until now the weather has continued to be mild. A week ago the last roses were in bloom. Suddenly the wind has swung around to the North, and a few snowflakes fell as our chickens took their first cautious steps on the loose in the potager.

As we were thawing out over coffee yesterday we became aware that dozens of birds were feeding in the alders outside the front door, where we have hung a large dried sunflower head and a fat-ball feeder. As well as the usual bluetits, great tits, goldfinches, greenfinches and robin, there were some round, plump, bright greenish-yellow stripy small birds wearing black berets. They foraged over the alder seed heads, never staying in the same place for long.

Female siskin - well stripy

Siskins (Tarin des Aulnes, carduelis spinus) had come to visit us again. We blogged about them in 2010 here, here,(with pictures) in 2011, here and here in 2013, but we missed them last winter, when it was mild all the time. I make no excuses for doing another post about them.

Acrobats on the alder - male siskins

They cling, bobbing up and down, to the skinniest twigs to pick out the alder seeds, and twist themselves into knots to get at their favourite food. Their name in French means "Alder Finch".

Ever charming

Today they came back, and explored the cherry tree and the willows as well as the alders. In the sunlight they looked even prettier. The males were in one group and the females in another, in different trees.

female siskin - one of my favourite photos

Male siskin - bright colours aren't everything you know!

Now let me see....

I know there's a seed in there

Alder seed on its way down

Always they were in the company of other birds, mainly goldfinches and sparrows.

Goldfinch selecting an alder seed

Goldfinch - slightly unusual view, of the back of the neck

My picture of the day. Just an ordinary sparrow.

Flocking finches!

Not because they keep emptying the feeders....
but...
We've noticed in the last week that there is quite a large flock* of European Goldfinches [Carduelis carduelis] Chardonneret élégant flying around here....
something normally associated with the winter months
[alright... I know it is cold enough].

One of our Goldfinches

There are three possibilities for this behaviour....
Firstly, that these are bachelor boys from last years broods that haven't found a mate... but those groups are normally smaller.
Secondly, that it is just too cold and wet to nest, with not enough food available... so they've regrouped for safety in numbers.
Finally, there isn't enough cover to nest in.

The last could have something to do with the heavy clearance that is going on on the riverbanks, but I doubt it as, in the scheme of things it is removing very little of the actual available cover.
A few tens of metres either way there will be brambles and blackthorn... with more on the wood edges.
However, it could be as a direct result of the very slow growth in some of the vegetation that they normally nest in... the bramble especially!

Dead bramble that provides no cover....

...if you follow the willow trunk down you will see it through the dead clump.

 Our brambles [Rubus ssp] haven't got going at all yet... the freeze in February hit them very hard, killing off most of the exposed shoots and buds... those that weren't tried to open in the exceptionally warm March... only to be hit by another blast of heavy frost just as they had done so.

The brown patch is a huge clump of bramble by the last of the five pollards.

You can't kill bramble that way, but it now has to come from the base, or form adventitious buds up surviving stems and grow from those. Whichever way it happens, this is a very slow process to begin with and will probably delay nesting for weeks for some species.


* more than 40.