Part 33

The lovely Purple Finch is all too little known. It occurs at some time during the year at every locality in Pennsylvania, yet it is not a familiar bird. The song alone should win it wide acclaim as a bird-neighbor, for, delivered from the top of a tree, or from a vine or weed, it is one of the brightest, most varied of our bird melodies and is given with such enthusiasm that we recognize in the singer a canary-like interest in prolonging the performance.

Purple Finches are often seen among the budding branches of a fruit tree, balancing on the slender twigs as they eat buds and capture occasional insects. The females are virtually silent, until they have cause to depart, then they swing off into the air, bound merrily higher and higher above the tree-tops, and make off as they call tik, tik in a characteristic tone. This important call-note should be remembered; it often serves to identify the species when the colors cannot be seen.

In its nesting-range, the song of this Finch is to be heard during all the spring and early summer days. At Pymatuning Swamp, restless males sang almost constantly while their mates assembled nesting materials. An ecstatic flight-song is frequently given when the bright male flutters high into the air and, still singing, descends on trembling wings to the twigs and new leaves.

The Purple Finch’s habit of eating buds and flowers of trees, including valuable orchard varieties, causes it to be unpopular when it is too common.

RED OR AMERICAN CROSSBILL Loxia curvirostra pusilla Gloger

Description.—Size and general shape of English Sparrow, but mandibles sharply pointed and crossed. Adult male: Deep dull red, brightest on rump, browner on back; wings and tail brownish black. Female: Dull olive-green, yellowish on the rump; head and back indistinctly streaked with blackish; underparts mixed with whitish. Immature male: Like the female, with some red mixed in the plumage. Length: 6 inches.

WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL Loxia leucoptera Gmelin

Description.—Size and shape of English Sparrow. Male: Dull rose-pink, brightest on rump, more or less streaked with blackish on back; wings and tail black, the wings with two prominent white bars, the tertials sometimes tipped with white; belly and under tail-coverts whitish. Female: Dull grayish green, yellowish on the rump, grayish below, the wings, as in the male, with two prominent white bars. Immature male: Similar to the female, but mottled irregularly with pink. Length: 6 inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—Both Crossbills are irregular winter visitors, sometimes abundant. They are usually found among coniferous trees. The Red Crossbill nests rarely in our higher mountains among the coniferous trees.

These two species are nearly always to be found together during winter, and in any plumage may be recognized by their wings, those of the White-winged species always having two wing-bars, those of the Red Crossbill never being marked. The Crossbills feed upon seeds of hemlock, pine, and spruce, which they secure by wrenching off the scales of the cones with their sharply pointed and crossed beaks.

REDPOLL Acanthis linaria linaria (Linnæus)

Description.—Smaller than an English Sparrow; conical bill, sharply pointed; nostrils covered with tufts of bristling feathers. Adult male: Crown bright red; chin and upper throat blackish; neck and back grayish brown, streaked with buffy and whitish; rump grayish, tinged with pink; wings and tail dark brown, the wings with two white bars; breast and cheeks washed with delicate rosy pink; belly white; sides buffy streaked with blackish. Female: Similar, but more heavily streaked above and without pink on breast or rump. Length: 5 inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—A rare and irregular winter visitor from the Far North. It sometimes occurs during the entire winter, but it is usually seen during the latter part, and chiefly in the northern counties.

Redpolls, like Goldfinches, swing about through the air with strongly undulating flight. They give a rasping, querulous squeal as they lift their crests and watch us. The birds are fond of weed seeds which they pick up from the snow. Usually they sit with feathers considerably fluffed out, and at such times the rosy breast of the male is noticeable.

GOLDFINCH Astragalinus tristis tristis (Linnæus)

Other Names.—Salad Bird; Wild Canary; Thistle Bird; Yellow Bird.

Description.—Smaller than English Sparrow; bill sharply pointed. Adult male in summer: Bright lemon-yellow with black crown, wings, and tail, the wings crossed with two white bars, the lesser coverts yellow like the body, and the tail-feathers with their inner webs white; upper tail-coverts gray. Adult female in summer: Upperparts yellowish brown, the crown unmarked; below, dull yellowish; wings and tail more or less as in male, but not so black, nor so strikingly marked; lesser coverts dull olive-green. Adult male in winter: Like adult female, but lesser wing-coverts yellow; breast dull yellow; belly whitish; sides brownish. Young male in winter: Similar but the lesser wing-coverts are dull greenish or grayish. Young males in summer: Like the adult but the lesser coverts are dull greenish or grayish. Length: 5 inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—A common permanent resident, somewhat irregular in winter, and often not known as a winter bird because of the complete change of color and habits.

Nest.—A compact, neatly built cup of weed-stalks and vegetable fiber, lined with soft materials, placed from 3 to 30 feet from the ground, often in a shade tree, on a branch extending over the highway. Eggs: 3 to 6, pale blue.

The Goldfinch is comparatively unknown as a winter bird. With the change of color the birds become wilder in disposition, no longer frequent the lawns and roadsides, and band together in large flocks. In summer the brightly colored males are very noticeable as they swing about among the flowers in a field or perch on dandelions in the yard. They are brilliant singers, even in winter, and may be recognized at a great distance in the summer by the flight-song, which has been written per-chick-o-ree, and which is repeated with each bound of the deeply undulating flight.

This bird nests very late, eggs being laid in latter June and July. In spring they are sometimes considerably mottled in appearance, as the brown winter plumage drops out and is replaced by the yellow of summer. This prenuptial moult is usually complete by the middle of May, or earlier, and with the brighter plumage return all the familiar call-notes and graceful motions which we associate with these attractive birds.

Goldfinches are fond of sunflower and cosmos seed, and we may lure them to the garden, perhaps for the entire year, by planting such flowers as these regularly.

PINE SISKIN Spinus pinus pinus (Wilson)

Other Name.—Pine Finch.

Description.—Smaller than English Sparrow; bill sharply pointed; a tuft of small feathers over nostril. Upperparts grayish brown streaked with black, the feathers margined with buffy; wing-feathers edged with yellowish and yellow at base; tail dark gray-brown, neatly forked, all but middle feathers yellow at base; underparts white, washed with buffy and heavily streaked with black. Length: 5 inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—A somewhat irregular migrant in April and May and in September and October; sometimes very common. Irregularly abundant in winter. It has been known to nest in the mountainous counties.

When winter flocks of these sociable finches visit Pennsylvania, the birds feed largely upon the seeds of hemlock and alder. Merrily they bound about through the air, giving their rough, querulous squeal. In looking for this bird, remember that the heavily streaked underparts and the yellow on the wings and tail are unmistakable. Siskins will sometimes be found feeding among the alders, not far from the ground. They often wander about with flocks of Goldfinches.

ENGLISH SPARROW Passer domesticus (Linnæus)