Most unexpected late June Pine Siskin
A small bird with a very distinctive beak, paused on a bracket in our garden (west of Montreal) this afternoon. J saw it first and called to me - “looks very like a Pine Siskin” she said. “What do you think?” I grabbed the nearest camera to hand and by luck grabbed one photo before it flew away. This is the photo, and clearly it is a Pine Siskin - note the distinctive beak and the small yellow flash in particular.
It is some years since we have seen decent numbers of these birds in our garden or nearby - though we did briefly have one in March of this year before the snows had gone. All previous local sightings in 28 years living here have been in WINTER.
One birder (https://www.facebook.com/reel/1681844166406819) from SW Quebec shared a brief photo of one a day or two ago ... Here is a screen-grab, the PISI appears about 30 seconds into the video that he posted.
On eBird, the best data source for bird sightings, a late June frequency of only 0.1% is recorded for this Montreal area ... so this was not just an unexpected observation, but also a genuine rarity, as we thought. A one in a thousand chance.
Gathered from the garden on Sunday
The pine siskins have been hanging out with the goldfinches and me all winter here in northern Vermont. They’ve just left and I’ve been wondering where they’re headed: further north from you to breed I think.
How delightful - what gorgeous little birds - I love how birds pause for a moment in our backyards on the way to somewhere.