Some years ago we once glimpsed a brightly coloured bird with too much yellow to be a Greenfinch. Our guess was that it was a Siskin but we never saw it again for over three years.

Then this rather drab bird popped in for a munch at the feeder. First thoughts were that it was a juvenile Greenfinch but the breast is heavily streaked and it is quite small - significantly smaller than the house sparrow which shooed it off before I could get any more pictures.

After consulting a few other more experienced bird watchers, we established that this was indeed a female Siskin.

Maybe, after another three years, we will get a picture of the colourful male!

Photographs - May 2006

(both photos will enlarge slightly)

Three years on and we haven't seen another Siskin in the garden at all. However, at a local country park, whilst trying to photograph some Redpolls, I found I had got a few presentable Siskin pics too.

Still not a male in full breeding plumage, but at least this one is a little more colourful than our garden visitor.

Photographs - March 2009

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