Thus far bird action around the neighborhood was relatively quiet and calm with with numerous chickadees and just a handful of other sprinkled in for variety. Well, last week that all changed as a large flock of Pine Siskin’s moved in. When the flock decides to visit the bird feeder it is quite a sight, a veritable frenzy of activity in some instances, and to say the feeder is mobbed might be an understatement.

Although they can also be calm and charming as was this fellow above.

This nomadic finch ranges widely and erratically across the continent each winter in response to seed crops. Better suited to clinging to branch tips than to hopping along the ground, these brown-streaked acrobats flash yellow wing markings as they flutter while feeding or as they explode into flight.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pine_Siskin/overview

Common Redpolls frequent our area in the winter each year but seeing them seems a hit or miss proposition as they move around quite a bit. This winter we got lucky and had a few hanging around the neighborhood for a couple of days in a big mixed flock of finch species.

During winter, some Common Redpolls tunnel into the snow to stay warm during the night. Tunnels may be more than a foot long and 4 inches under the insulating snow.

Common Redpolls can survive temperatures of –65 degrees Fahrenheit. A study in Alaska found Redpolls put on about 31 percent more plumage by weight in November than they did in July.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Redpoll/overview