Siskins

I've had the birdfeeder for a while now. I always try to put a variety of bird foods on it as my garden is visited by a wide variety of birds. I have a peanut feeder, sunflower hearts, suet balls, niger seed and on the table surface itself, I dump a little mound of ordinary songbird mix.

Sometimes I will add in a few old raisins and currants to the songbird mix. I found these dried and possibly ancient fruits in the kitchen and were well past their use-by date. Instead of throwing them out, I give them to the birds.

In the past couple of weeks, the goldfinches have finally noticed the niger seed. It was put there especially for finches and I was beginning to think that the seed I got was faulty. Either that our our birds are fussier than I thought. The other morning there were six goldfinches at the bird feeding station. In addition to those stunning little creatures, there were four birds (all of the same species) that I didn't recognise. When the field guide was in my hands, I discovered the birds that were visiting were siskins. I'd never seen these before.
There is one little siskin on the top of the little roof, one siskin on the table itself and two clinging to the peanut feeder. There are two goldfinches eating the niger seed.

Since the siskins showed up, I see them every day. The goldfinches are an every day visitor as well. It is so great! They are jewels!