Natural Selection at work here...

We got a new bird feeder. It's one of those squirrel-proof ones...if a squirrel does manage to jump on the ring, the weight of the squirrel pull the ring down and close the feeder. We've been getting flocks of Pine Siskins living in our backyard for the last month or so. They're very aggressive with the other birds and will clean out the whole feeder in about a day or less.

Squirrels love them as these birds will knock the seeds out of the feeder onto the ground. Seconds before I took this picture, there were close to 50 birds covering the trellis and feeder. All that's left are a lot of blurrs and the squirrel on the ground. The squirrel took off a second later.

It seems that we now have a couple of residence falcons using this place as their version of Watership Down.



Whenever the whole flock is spooked and takes off, we know one of the falcons are near. Sometimes there would be the one bird left, pecking away at the seeds on the ground. That one usually ends up being falcon food.