Tube Talk II

It's endlessly fascinating to me how birds select certain feeders at certain times. Case in point: I swung my BirdCam around 180 degrees yesterday to record what took place at a nearly identical sunflower seed tube feeder. And I got significantly different results. To be sure, I still found no squirrels (whoa!) and the same six species I discussed yesterday, but at this feeder, I observed this:
(1) Much greater traffic (87% more photos), which worked out to a visit on average every four minutes.
(2) Heavier domination by House Finches and American Goldfinches. And at this feeder the Goldfinches showed up nearly as often (67 pictures) as the House Finches (116).
(3) Much less visitation by the "Paridid" set (Titmice, Chickadees, Brown Headed Nuthatches) and Cardinals. They represented a total of only 26 photographs.
I don't possess nearly enough equipment to conduct a careful statistical analysis of feeder traffic, and heaven knows there are many variables to sort out. But there is enough information here to demonstrate that feeder positioning is not an arbitrary act on our part, if we wish to optimize traffic performance. As they say in the trade, "more research is suggested."