Today was a stunning day, both in the amount of snow that came down (over 10 inches and it’s snowing again) and the number of Common Redpolls (estimate of 450-500 at the peak times) that swarmed everywhere. The snow kept covering the feeders and the seeds, I kept removing snow from the feeders and adding seeds, and the redpolls swarmed in to eat the seeds — over and over again. The redpolls mostly ignored me when I went out in the yard, only flying off when I was a couple of feet away, and one of them even landed briefly on my head. To give them something to eat all of the time, I spread seed on the porch floor that did not get covered quite so quickly with snow. Although the Steller’s Jays and Black-billed Magpies came by a couple of times and a Boreal Chickadee went to the suet, it was mostly a redpoll day.
The videos of the redpolls that I have shown before are of the main feeder on the porch, which was equally if not more active today than I have seen it before. Out in the yard today it was clearly much more active than I have ever seen it before. I am inserting a couple of short videos showing a bit of the frenetic activity out in the yard.
During a lull in the snowstorm, Dave arrived home from work and we cleared the driveway. He was on the snowblower and I was on the shovel. Maybe we are nearing the end of the snow season?
Lynn Barber's Birding Blog 