I also had tons of Pine siskins visit my WNY birdfeeders this winter. 2-3 times, mixed in with the P.siskins were 1 or 2 Common Redpolls. I also had White-winged Crossbills in my brushy area pinetrees, eating pinecone seeds, the first time that has ever happened since I have been birdwatching. Both siskins and redpolls are irruptive species for WNY. This year, the pinecone seed crop in SE Canada was poor, so the siskins and redpolls and crossbills moved further south into the USA, in search of better food sources. They will go back up north to breed. A few straggler Pine siskins are still here, but most have already left WNY Gail R (WNY)

I haven't seen any this year here in Plymouth, MA but I just checked eBird for May 2013 in Massachusetts and there are a lot of reports. I checked the Birds of North America Online site and they say: "Also breeds very sporadically and locally (usually after major winter irruptions) south to se. Massachusetts (Veit and Petersen 1993)..." Maybe they'll breed in your area! Claire

Awwww...they are so cute. Was it year before last when we had a Pine Siskin Irruption? Well anyway, I had never seen one prior to that, and we had scads and scads of them in my Georgia yard that year. Where are you located dklucius?~~Angie

If it means anything or not about whether this trend sticks, here's this. I have a friend that is a cabinet maker. In the last year he was hired by a very well known San Francisco architect to do his office in VGF. Boss's office, Board Room, all of the open office(for 17-21), copy room and kitchen/lunchroom. I went to give him a hand on the Saturday prior to the Monday he handed it off. By Wednesday, he had a request from the same architect to do 1800SqFt. of kitchen family room,etc., in cabinets of VGF in his brand new house on the water in Tiburon. So, it looks as though the designer's that are on the leading edge of building "fashion" think the trend is here for awhile. Personally, it reminds me of the fifties when fir was everywhere and always reminds me of "cheap", but that's a personal bias. When it comes to teak (I'm a boater), walnut, and other beautiful woods (there are lot's of exotics available), wenge, jatoba, cocobolo, then I'm on board. Certain ones will be around for a long time, others might be rare or unheard of in years to come.