Now on Tit TV: loads of color! New passerines, up to 2 kinds of finches, + more classic corvids

In the last few days the magpies have been by more often, and three days ago Wax spotted two new species for the first time, the Eurasian siskin (Finnish: Vihervarpunen, lit. green sparrow; Swedish: Grönsiska, lit. green siskin), which is... really yellow and not green, although it has a greenish tinge to it, like... chartreusey yellow, like a new birch leaf perhaps?; and the brambling or mountain finch (Fi: järripeippo - peippo is finch, järri is absent from my dictionary; Sv: bergfink), which is notably very orange. I've seen at least two mountain finches every day since then, plus larger numbers of bullfinches - up to five males at a time. (There's still a mixed flock of great tits and blue tits nearly all the time, so much so that we've taken to referring to the window as Tit TV.)

( Portraits of the new stars )

Also, partly because sunset is now before 4 pm, I would love to hang up string lights both indoors and out as well as the... I think... five? pierced brass six-pointed star window lanterns (I now have more star lanterns than windows unless you count the bathroom), but completely lack the energy and executive function (XF???) to arrange this. We definitely don't have the kind that go outside at all anyway, but I think even finding hooks and extension cords and lightbulbs for the indoor ones is beyond me at this point.