TWO WINTER FINCHES

     Some winters over the years, flocks of pine siskins and common redpolls have invaded Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  I've seen both kinds of these small, winter finches in Neffsville where I used to live, and in a few other, local places.  The siskins were eating seeds out of tiny cones in a row of eastern hemlock trees, some of them hanging up-side-down on the cones to do so.  Another time in another winter, I saw several redpolls clinging to the brown, pocked balls of a sweet gum tree in our yard to eat the teeny seeds in those balls.  And they ingested seeds from sweet gum balls that fell to the ground.  
     Pine siskins and common redpolls are attractive, related finches that come south, irregularly, to the northern United States for the winter.  They generally do so when supplies of seeds are low in Canada and Alaska, where these birds raise young.  
     Each of these handsome, northern species collects into its own flocks in winter, gatherings that are always on the move in their quest for seeds.  They feed on weed and grass seeds in fields and thickets, the tiny, winged seeds of  a variety of birch trees, and other types of seeds.  They also consume seeds at bird feeders.   
     These lovely, five-inch birds have much in common.  They are northern-nesting species, sparrow-sized with gray-brown feathering that is heavily streaked, camouflaging them.  
     But siskins have yellow feathers in their wings and tails, yellow feathers that aren't always visible.  And redpolls have red caps set, jauntily, forward on their foreheads, and black bibs.  Adult male redpolls also have a pink blush on their chests. 
     Siskins rear offspring in the edges and clearings of mixed deciduous and coniferous forests in Canada and Alaska, and down the Rocky Mountains.  There they feed protein-packed insects to their young.  
     In winter, siskins in their flocks twitter incessantly and utter rising, buzzy trills.  They are much like the related American goldfinches, and are much like them in actions and song.
     The lovely redpolls raise young among birch, willow, young spruce trees, and other kinds of scrubby trees and bushes on the Arctic tundra of Canada and Alaska.  They, too, feed their youngsters a diet of insects.  Wintering flocks of redpolls utter twittering trills as they feed or move about.  
     Pine siskins and common redpolls are pretty, little birds that irregularly venture south during some winters.  But they are exciting to experience when they are south because they are so irregular about doing so.  They are a bit of the Far North come south.         

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