COLORFUL FARMLAND FRINGILLIDAE

      The fringillidae family of birds includes finches, sparrows, buntings and grosbeaks, all of which have seed-cracking beaks.  Four kinds of adaptable fringillidae, nesting in thickets in southeastern Pennsylvania cropland, have colorful males, including permanent resident northern cardinal grosbeaks and American goldfinches, and summering indigo buntings and blue grosbeaks.  All these striking males are a joy to see singing from roadside wires and the tips of trees and shrubbery in hedgerows between fields in local farmland to proclaim nesting territories and attract mates for reproduction.  The plainly-feathered females of each species build their cradles secluded among the bushes and tangled vines in those thickets.  

     Most everyone is familiar with the beautifully red male cardinals because they are common and obvious in farmland, and suburban areas, and boldly sing "what, cheer, what cheer ...".  Their camouflaged mates are pretty, too, being mostly gray-brown with red in their wings, tails and crests.  Both parents feed seeds and invertebrates to their young in their twig and grass nurseries.  

     Each male American goldfinch is bright-yellow with black wings and tail, and a black cap set jauntily forward on his forehead.  Their mates are olive-green, which camouflages them.  

     Goldfinches begin nesting in July when thistle flowers go to seed.  They eat the thistle seeds and use thistle fluff, that parachute the seeds away on the wind, to line their lovely and petite cradles they build in forks of twigs in bushes and sapling trees.  Both goldfinch parents feed their young a partly-digested porridge of thistle seeds and other types of seeds.

     Male indigo buntings, in summer, are a delightful shade of blue all over.  Their mates, however, are brown all over, which blends them into their surroundings.  I've heard many male indigos singing beautifully in several rural locations over the years, but I never tire of hearing them.  They feed invertebrates and seeds to their young in their nurseries.   

     Male blue grosbeaks are a lovely deep-blue all over, but with two brown stripes on each wing.  Their mates are brown.  I once saw a pair of blue grosbeaks repeatedly going into a tangle of shrubbery along the fence of a meadow.  They were feeding young invertebrates, but I didn't see the nursery or the young they were feeding because I didn't attempt to.  

     Cardinals and goldfinches stay here through winter, where they consume seeds, but the indigos and blue grosbeaks migrate to Tropical America to avoid the northern winter.  But they will be back the next spring to raise young.  And the males will grace our croplands with their pretty colors once again.

     

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