Sunday, 13 December 2009

Snowfinches are back

Every winter, hundreds of Snowfinches collect in Kühtai in large non-breeding flocks; feeding on the sunflower seeds on offer there, and sheltering from bad weather in the high mountains. I have yet to see a snowfinch below 1800m and Kühtai lies at just over 2000m.

The flock size tends to increase through the winter, reaching a peak in about February (but I'll monitor it more closely over the next winter season.
Yesterday I was up in Kühtai again for a day of glorious powder skiing and picked up the first small flocks of the season in town (as opposed to the single individuals I have been seeing in the high mountains up until now).
It is wonderful to have them back, and I look forward to take looooots of photos of them over the next few months.

If you are interested in other blog posts about snowfinches in Tirol/Austria, see here.

Happy birding,
Dale Forbes
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6 comments:

  1. Chris13 December 2009 at 21:51

    Hi Dale,
    I hope you will get looooots of pictures of them, then we would be able to admire them ;-)

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  2. Dale Forbes14 December 2009 at 15:35

    I'll trade you: you send me an Eider and I'll send you a flock of snowfinches!

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  3. nuna8715 December 2009 at 16:38

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dale Forbes15 December 2009 at 19:03

    dude, I don't want your Bangalori flowers! I am sure they are pretty, I just don't want them.

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  5. Fraser Simpson15 December 2009 at 19:15

    Love Snowfinches - they were a bit of a 'bogey' bird of mine for a while.

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  6. Dale Forbes15 December 2009 at 20:42

    Fraser, you come to Tirol and I will work my hardest to find them for you! Easy in Winter, hard work in spring and summer. Autumn either super hard or fairly easy - more a luck thing.

    ReplyDelete