Bird on a Wall

Had some friends round for lunch today, which was lovely and gave us a chance to catch up with news as we hadn't seen each other since before Christmas. As the afternoon wore on, I realised I was running out of time for an outside blip.

However, as our friends were leaving I spied my outside blip right behind their backs. There sitting tightly against a rendered wall opposite our back door was a little female Siskin. I haven't a clue what she was doing there, but grabbed the camera and rattled off a few shots. She was not bothered by our presence and remained on the wall until our friends left, at which point it flew off.

Although Siskins are resident in Scotland, they are not to be seen in our part of the country during the winter. They usually return in early Spring and hang around until October. They are a source of great entertainment on the feeders as they are quite aggressive and see off much larger birds. They also seem to spend quite a lot of time fighting with each other. This is the first Sisken I have seen this year and it appeared at the niger seed feeder this morning. As I said, I am not sure why it was on the wall for so long, and can only guess that with the milder weather there may be some insect life amongst the stones.

The Siskins have very much endeared themselves to us by their colourful appearance and behaviour. They also have little fear of humans and you can get very close to them before they fly off. I have even managed to get right next to a young Siskin on the feeder and stroke its head for a few seconds. It seemed to quite enjoy it until it looked round and saw me at which point it was off in a flash! I often wonder what thought went through its mind when it saw me so close?