I’m referring to pine siskins or even purple finches. If you’re lucky, a few more rare northern visitors will visit or make your yard their winter home. I saw a pair at my feeders a few days later. Sometimes arriving just before them are the white-throated sparrows. 5 or so but this year I didn’t see the first one until Oct. What I like to look for to confirm that fall has arrived, is the return of the northern juncos. They and the downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, are all year-round residents.
The song sparrows that nested in the spruce trees scratch away at the ground gleaning the seeds that the finches dislodged from the feeders.
Slowly, the local cardinals get the message and early in the morning and just before dark they devour the sunflower seeds. At first, the two dozen house finches that feasted on some of my apples and peaches over the summer months, dominate the feeders. I begin filling my feeders about the first week of October. But the onset of autumn also sends the northern birds “fleeing” south to areas like ours that are a bit more tolerable. Nearly all of our summer breeders have headed south, some short distances, and some to the tropics and beyond. O me, October in effect, brings a new birding season.
