Spray River Trail, Banff, Alberta.
Pine Siskins eat all kinds of seeds, but they do have a fondness for the seeds of pines and other conifers. On our way back to the car, J and I saw a group of them fittingly feasting on pine cones near the trail entrance. The photos are fuzzy – the birds were a bit far and in the shade and they moved constantly. But they’re still a nice memory of a bird I’ve seen once before (at a bird feeder in East Vancouver… there were tens of them… but I never saw them at that bird feeder again).
Getting at the pine cone seeds looked a bit tricky.
Myr's Bytes 
We love pine siskins! The pines on our property are slowly maturing (we planted them almost 10 years ago) so we may soon have these birds on our property. We’re excited. Great photos! I love that second to last one. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is sooo cool that you planted some of your trees. It is amazing how much bigger they get after 10 years, then 20 years… I hope you get some Pine siskins. I saw some in Calgary just after posting these images. A weeping birch was full of them. They were feasting on the catkins. I got to see the upside down eating that All About Birds mentions!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, niiiice! Did you happen to have your camera with you? 🙂 Part of our property was farmland for decades, so hubby bought a bunch of foot-tall seedlings of mostly native-to-our-area trees (pecans and white pines are pushing it a bit) inexpensively from the Dept of Natural Resources to plant. They’ve done very well, most of them!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did, I did! :-D. And I got a few good pictures. I think I will get around to posting them, but I still have to pick the 5 or 6 best ones and edit them a little.
Your property sounds lovely. Do the pecan trees produce a lot of pecans?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pecan trees take over 20 years (I forget the average number of years…) to start producing nuts, so we have not been able to harvest any yet. And I am SO impatient! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, you have to wait another 10 years for pecans! I bet they’ll be amazing :-)!
LikeLiked by 1 person
They darned well better be for all the waiting I have had to do. LOL!
LikeLiked by 1 person
😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, so cool! I’d never heard of these birds before! 💛💛💛
LikeLiked by 1 person
They’re pretty sweet little social eaters :-).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aren’t they cute? Your photos really capture them. You’re right~it does look like a challenge getting those seeds.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So cute! I like that they are mostly brown and white with just a few fun yellow stripes. I wonder why it looked so tricky to get the seeds. Maybe some Pine siskins have it figured out but others don’t?
LikeLike
I suppose that is right! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person