I still have a few today also, I also had a few Pine Siskins toady too, my peak PFW count this winter was 300 commons, but on a few non count days I estimate I had as many as 400 or more.. I also had a Hoary a few times this PFW season and on a few non count days..
This Year I only went through 220 pounds of Thistle seed. I'm looking for a job!! Please see http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewlongtin -- Andrew Longtin Corcoran (Hennepin Co.) Minnesota See my WEB pages at: www.birderguy.com Email: birder...@comcast.net Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory Supporter http://www.hawkridge.org Minnesota Ornithologists Union Member http://www.moumn.org Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA) Member http://www.hmana.org Cornell Lab Member (PFW) http://birds.cornell.edu/pfw -----Original Message----- From: Minnesota Birds [mailto:mou-...@lists.umn.edu] On Behalf Of Dennis and Barbara Martin Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 11:56 AM To: MOU-NET@LISTS.UMN.EDU Subject: Re: [mou-net] Common Redpolls I would expect them to be leaving fairly soon. Historically I have never seen redpolls anywhere in Minnesota in the month of May, although I believe that a few others have seen them that late on occasion. Someone else should chime in on that point. The question is what the size of this years irruption will have on some birds staying late. I still have over 130 redpolls at my feeders as of this AM. That is considerably down from the peak counts of a month or two ago. My peak count at any one time was a conservative 530 birds. That only occurred once. Most other peak counts this year were in the 200 plus range. Compare that to past years peak counts. Never had we seen more that 62 redpolls at once in past years. By the way we have not had a problem with dying birds at our feeders. All winter we have practiced very clean practices. Feeders are washed and disinfected on a regular rotating basis and the ground under the feeders has been kept fairly clean. Most of our feeders have trays which were cleaned on a nightly basis thus eliminating severe ground contamination. The local Coopers Hawk which returned in the past 2-3 weeks has been more of a problem, along with the Sharp-shinned who was here in January for a few days. We haven't figured out exactly how much seed we went through this winter I do know that I was buying Niger seed and sunflower chips 100 pounds of each at a time. And that occurred several times. And that got tiring. But the chance to study that many redpolls and their plumage variations was probably a once in a lifetime experience. Even the degree of variation in probable hoaries was rather interesting Only two true hoaries were seen but at least a half dozen other possible hoaries were studied for several days at a time. By the way we believe that there is a constant turnover in the birds visiting the feeders. On more that one occasion we would see a bird with a distinctive form of albinism that would only be present for a few days throughout the period. Denny Dennis and Barbara Martin Shorewood, MN dbmar...@skypoint.com ----- Original Message ----- " <l.schoenb...@comcast.net> To: <MOU-NET@LISTS.UMN.EDU>From: "Lynne Schoenborn Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 8:35 AM Subject: [mou-net] Common Redpolls >I still have many Common Redpolls coming to the feeders in my New Hope > yard. Does anyone know how long I can expect them to stay? ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
