Hello-
I've continued to host rosy finches in my yard at 8000 feet in Snowmass Village, up to 500 birds at a time of three species. Today, unfortunately, two of the Brown-capped rosy-finches crashed into a window and died. What followed was sad and remarkable. For about the next hour, up to perhaps 200 of the finches gathered in the trees around the two dead finches. They would descend and gather immediately around the birds, up to 100 at a time and linger next to the dead finches. On occasion one of the finches would land on top of one of the dead birds, flapping its wings, reminiscent of copulation, or, as my 10-year-old son put it, "doing CPR." This continued for about an hour or so. I don't think that any of the attending birds were Gray-crowned or Black rosy-finches but I'm not totally sure of that. It reminds me of the behavior of mourning elephants that linger around the body of a dead relative, as I've seen on nature documentaries. My children took a brief video of the experience.
Bryan Gieszl
Snowmass Village, CO
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