It appears winter has settled in around the North Country and for many folks in our area, that marks the start of the bird feeding season. As usual, the folks at the Finch Research Network have issued their annual prognostication of just who we can expect to visit our feeders this winter.
As is typical of the forecast, it’s mostly just best guesses. While a limited food supply can be relied upon to move birds out of an area, where they end up going is a lot harder to predict. So, keep that in mind as you read further.
For most of us who feed birds in winter, the grosbeaks are the most coveted. Both the pine and evening grosbeaks bring plenty of color and cheerful noise to the feeder. While evening grosbeaks can be found here in the North Country at any time of year, the pine grosbeaks summer north of the border, so it takes something to push them south to our area. Typical winter conditions are usually enough, which is why we tend to see pine grosbeaks here, at least in limited numbers, virtually every winter. It’s usually just a question of how many.
This year, according to the finch forecast, “areas around Lake Superior and particularly northern Minnesota, may see a larger movement” as a limited crop of cones and native fruits in northwestern Ontario is consumed.
Pine grosbeaks feed heavily on balsam fir cones, ash seeds, and mountain ash berries, and while most parts of the boreal forest reported a decent crop of all-of-the-above, that was not the case just to our north, as drought, last winter’s record mild conditions, and spruce budworm, all seemed to take a toll on those natural foods. That could bring pine grosbeaks into our feeders in better numbers than usual, where they feast most readily on black oil sunflower seeds. So far, I’ve yet to see any at our house although I have heard a few out in the woods in recent weeks.
The same factors leading the forecasters to predict a good movement of pine grosbeaks may have the same effect on evening grosbeaks. “With spruce budworm outbreaks becoming more widespread and scattered around Lake Superior, western Great Lake states may see even more movement this winter,” the forecast noted, adding: “Evening grosbeaks in northwestern Ontario westward should move out of the boreal forest, looking for feeders in towns or suitable food sources further south.” Hopefully this will bring some excitement to our feeders this winter.
Some of the smaller finches may also add interest. Redpolls, which rely heavily on birch and alder seeds, have arrived in the area although they tend to stay out in the woods until their natural foods grow scarcer later in the winter. Then, they’ll come in to feeders for black oil sunflower and, especially, thistle seed. The forecast suggests we’ll see more of them than usual this winter as redpolls clear out of parts of northwestern Ontario.
In the past, I’ve written about how to distinguish the common redpolls from the hoary redpolls, but there’s no reason to bother in the future. The birding poohbahs recently determined that the three species of redpolls, two found in North America and the other in Eurasia, are all variations of one species. So, I’ll have to cross another species off the life list thanks to the “lumpers” who currently seem to be dominant in the birding world.
Other small finches appear to be around as well, at least so far. We had a huge purple finch population this summer, but they’ve largely moved south of our region. Julie Grahn, outside of Cook, recently reported a few still hanging around at her house, along with a few pine siskins, which are probably the most unpredictable of our finches. We had a lot of them around earlier in the year but, like the purple finches, they seem to have mostly moved out of the area.
We do appear to have a few goldfinches hanging around the North Country this winter, at least so far. I’ve had a flock at least 15 that’s been hanging around for the past few weeks.
That’s the thing with our northern finches. Unlike the snowbirds, that reliably head south to avoid harsh winter conditions, northern finches can move in any direction come winter, even north, depending on where their favorite food sources are found. Since they feed high in the trees, on pine, spruce, fir, or ash seeds, birch catkins, and berries or other native fruits, deep snow is no hindrance for these boreal forest wanderers. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of them at the feeder this winter.