29 October 2015 Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. A few days ago a giant storm, Hurricane Patricia, emerged from the eastern Pacific Ocean to make landfall along the west coast of Mexico. There were dire warnings that this, by far the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the western world, would lay waste to vast areas of Mexico. We held our breath for all the poor souls in lightweight homes but in the end the hurricane was merciful and damage was lighter than feared. Then Patricia continued on along a track to the north and east, drenching Texas as she went and us as almost her last gasp. So yesterday we had a full twenty-four hours of steady, sometimes torrential, rains. Today, winds blew at storm force all day long; presumably air rushing to ease Patricia’s low-pressure heart.
I ventured out to do a census expecting the valley to be relatively tranquil, and it was. Trees around the perimeter were roaring and tugging and the sky was full of flying-things-not-birds. My ninety-minute census was pleasantly varied and included a male Belted Kingfisher, a Rusty Blackbird, six Purple Finches, a Fox Sparrow and a Brown Creeper. Here’s some of them in a slideshow gallery visible only on the website, not if you’re reading this as an email.
I was quite happy with the birds I’d seen, it spoke of the decline of fall and I had enjoyed the drama of the surrounding storm. I think three Pine Siskins were almost my last sightings, I heard them chattering to each other in their almost inaudible squeaks (tsee-wee, tseee tseee tseee) in the very top of a Yellow Birch where they were working over the seed cones. Content though I was with the kingfisher, the Brown Creeper and all the rest, the siskins were my Birds of the Day.
We describe Pine Siskins as winter finches; they breed much farther north of here in the land of pine and spruce. It’s only when there’s poor pinecone crop that they are prompted to move south this early. Tempting though it may be to see them as precursors of more winter finches, the factors driving their winter wanderings are many. It may happen, it may not.