[CT Birds] Goldfinches

[Robert J. Bitondi]

My goldfinch numbers seemed to fall off sharply early in the fall, well before the redpolls arrived I think.  I've lived in this area for about 15 years in two locations (Eastford-Pomfret) and from that experience I expect counts of between 10 and 30+ goldfinches as normal during the winter.  This winter I get a norm of 1-2.

The redpoll domination that Paul describes doesn't seem to always be the case here.  I've been getting 10-20 redpolls at the feeders, but not persistently.  (There were 21 today.) The goldfinches have plenty of opportunities to feed when there are no redpolls present---entire days actually--- and the goldfinches themselves, in my observation, seem to exhibit the same wandering, hit and fade behavior too.  A very few goldfinches do feed while redpolls are feeding, but usually no more than 5 (and that would be a good number this winter).  There was a siskin here very briefly feeding with the redpolls, but it didn't hang around.

Paul, does any of this work into your hypothesis?

Bob
Pomfret Center