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Typically each winter on the Wyoming / Utah border in
Evanston we have moderate numbers of House and Cassin's
finches.
For the last 2 years both species have nested here then
disappeared in September.
The last year we had good numbers of Cassin's was 2001. I
even had one orange and an unusual orange/yellow morph frequenting my
feeder. But in 2002 many had some sort of disease. Their beaks were deformed and
had sores on them. Some had infected eyes. Maybe this is part of the downward
trend??
Also the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches are not showing
up. Around the Holidays there used to be hundreds and hundreds of
them; enough to drive the House Sparrows off the feeders. Now there are but a
handful. We see them on the Deseret Land and Livestock Ranch on the Christmas
Bird Count. The Ranch rotates cattle grazing areas, resting many
acres of habitat that supplies food for the GCRFs. The rest of our
land here is stricken with years of drought and subsequent overgrazing.
Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches (and many other species) can't rely on human supplied
food alone. I believe there's just so little to eat they move
on.
The lack of weeds and weed seeds also minimizes the rodent
population and their feathered predators. Hawks, falcon, and owl numbers are
down.
On the upside we had Redpolls last winter!!!
Tim Gorman
Evanston WY
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