The last two days I’ve had some old friends come to visit – Pine Siskins and Common Redpolls. Since I first got to know these birds when I was living out west, that’s kind of how I think of them, but a quick check of the field guide shows that they are indeed found across almost the entire continent. That got me to looking at some of my other favorite western winter birds. Both the Red- and the White-winged Crossbills, as well as the Evening Grosbeak look to be generally a bit further north, but it’s not completely out of the question to see them here, I suppose. It doesn’t look good for the Gray-crowned Rosy finches, though. To see them here would be a rare, call-the-bird-hotline event!
I tried to snap a few shots of the Redpolls through my window this morning, but it’s so dark and snowy that mostly what I got was reflection, but I found a perfect shot of a male at a website called 50birds.com – which I will definitely explore more later on. There are so many birds I grew to know and love in the mountain years, ravens, magpies, mountain chickadees, rufous hummingbirds… But then again, I longed for cardinals and red-bellied woodpeckers when I was there, so I guess it all evens out.
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