This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the pine grosbeak.
These northern finches are permanent residents of boreal forests and western mountains in North America, and are also found in forests from eastern Asia to Scandinavia. Across this wide range they exhibit differences in size and in the amount of red in males.
In the Rocky Mountains, they are most abundant in open forests of spruce, pine and fir near treeline at elevations above 9,000 feet. They need to drink water or eat snow daily, so preferred habitats include wet, high drainages. Often living far from humans, they are not as wary as many birds.
For a finch, these birds are large and plump. Males are rosy-red and gray, and females are gray with tints of yellow on the head and rump. Both have two white wingbars on dark wings.
Nearly all of their diet is vegetarian and varies with what is available. Using their thick, stubby bills, they can nip off the fresh buds and needles of conifers in spring and extract seeds from cones. Seeds and fruits of aspen, birch, mountain ash, crabapple and other trees are added in season. In winter, they eat salt and grit from roadways.
Their deliberate feeding style, slowly hopping between tree branches, sets them apart from other birds that are constantly in motion while feeding in conifers. They do add some insects and spiders to their diet during breeding season. Adults regurgitate a palatable paste of insects and vegetable matter to nestlings.
When seed crops fail, these finches are forced to wander in search of food and may show up south of their normal breeding ranges or at lower elevations in population irruptions. This may bring them to fruit trees in towns and to backyard sunflower feeders, a treat for people who don’t otherwise see these forest birds.
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