Winter Finch Round Up!

 This fall we have been blessed with an abundance of winter finches arriving from the boreal forest.  I have never seen these species in such abundance this far south!  In the past couple of weeks I have tallied nearly all of them, with the exception of Red Crossbill, which I am still on the hunt for!  Pine and Evening Grosbeak, White-winged Crossbill, Pine Siskin, Common and Hoary Redpoll have all been located within my 5MR (5 miles from my house)!  It sure makes local birding very exciting.

I have managed to snap a few record shots of these species, although I would like a chance to get better shots of these species in the coming months.

Below are a few of the shots I managed to get.

Pine Siskins

Pine Grosbeak

Evening Grosbeak

I have enjoyed birding from my backyard as well, and have seen large numbers of Common Redpolls almost daily over the past week.  Backyard birding works particularly well with a new baby in the house!

With large numbers of redpolls around, I was on the hunt for a Hoary!  The rarer of the two species.  I was fortunate to find a female exilipes Hoary Redpoll right behind my backyard, and I fired off a few shots with my lens sticking out the door.  Note the paleness of this bird, limited streaking on the rump and undertail coverts as well as the very small beak.

I have also photographed a few other birds in addition to these specialties!

Pileated Woodpecker couple

Rough-legged Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Canada Goose from above

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Herring Gull

Rough-legged Hawk