Male Siskin

Out in the depths of Dartmoor today I had a nice surprise when, at a feeding station, a pair of Siskin were coming regularly to the feeder. It's not all that often that I get the chance to photograph them and I have to confess that they are one of my favourite species.  In the spring, males are very attractive, bright yellow with a solid contrasting black cap and th female is more sombre, hardlt yellow at all and without the black cap.  Their scientific name is "carduelus" which is the same family as both the European and American Goldfinch as well as Redpolls and Linnet, all are seedeaters.

Female Siskin

This is a Marsh Tit taking a mealworm from the feeding table. Marsh Tits are one of the less common tit species, the size of a Coal Tit but totally different in plumage  both in colour and pattern but both of these tits are devoid of yellow or blue in the plumage. you are easily  to seperate the two species by the lack of white on the neck in the Marsh Tit.  Coal Tits are much more common now and as common as a Blue Tit  and for every 100 Coal Tits seen you may see just 1 Marsh Tit!   Incidentally Marsh Tits and Willow Tits are very very similar and in actual fact,  Willow Tits are almost absent from Devon but they can be found in a few locations.