Pine Siskins are nomadic and irruptive. They are here one season and gone the next as they roam around looking for seeds in trees. Today, a flock of them was indulging in a offbeat practice of getting salt into their diet in a parking lot that had been salted by humans to melt snow and ice during last winter.
A small proportion of the more than 30 Pine Siskins eating salt in a parking lot.
Could be salt; could just be gravel. Could be salted gravel, haha. They’ve nibbled off our driveway for decades, sometimes in large flocks. We’re remote, don’t drive out much, so not like we bring home a lot of salt, and there’s none on our road. A local woman who’s now 101 and was a great ‘birder’ her whole life introduced me to them 30 years ago and told me they eat gravel for minerals and as digestive ‘grit’. Regardless, haven’t seen nearly as many in the past 2 years.
I would agree with Vicki. Salt for minerals and/or gravel for grit or a combination thereof.
Vicki & Kim, clearly I have to broaden my assessment of what the siskins are doing.
I suspect they are after an uncommon mineral, possibly salt. I say this because a flock consistently pecks around in our carport, where there are residues of imported materials – never out in the adjacent driveway, which LOOKS just the same.
Funny enough I was just watching a few white winged crossbills nibbling at a pile of sand/gravel at the city reservoir. As I was leaving I happened to notice a lone Siskin in the group.