Breeding Location:
Forests, coniferous, Bushes, shrubs, and thickets
Breeding Type:
Monogamous, Semicolonial
Breeding Population:
Widespread, Abundant
Egg Color:
Green blue with brown and black spots at large end
Number of Eggs:
3 - 5
Incubation Days:
13
Egg Incubator:
Female
Nest Material:
Bark, moss, feathers, and fur.
Migration:
Migratory
Recommended Products:
General
Pine Siskin: Small finch with brown-streaked body. Wings have small patches of yellow and two white wing-bars. Tail is dark, notched, and has small yellow patches. Bill is slender and pointed. Sexes are similar.
Range and Habitat
Pine Siskin: Breeds from southern Alaska, Mackenzie, Quebec, and Newfoundland south to California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Great Lakes region, and northern New England; wanders southward throughout the U.S. during winter. Preferred habitats include coniferous and deciduous forests, woodlands, parks, shade trees near human habitation, alder thickets, and brushy pastures.
Breeding and Nesting
Pine Siskin: Three to five green blue eggs with black and brown spots at large end are laid in a shallow nest made of bark, twigs, and moss. Nest is usually built in a conifer branch 10 to 50 feet above the ground, far out from the trunk. Eggs are incubated for approximately 13 days by the female.
Foraging and Feeding
Pine Siskin: Eats seeds of alders, birches, spruce, and other trees; also feeds on thistle and other weed seeds, forbs, buds, insects, and spiders. Attracted to salt licks and salt treated highways in the winter; sometimes drinks sap at drill wells created by sapsuckers; forages in trees and on the ground.
Readily Eats
Suet, Millet, Thistle, Sunflower Seeds (hulled)
Vocalization
Pine Siskin: Song is a husky, twittering warble, rising and falling in pitch and interspersed with a rapid ascending "ZZZzzzzzzzzzrree", which sounds like the equivalent of a bird with a chainsaw.
Similar Species
Pine Siskin: House Finch has a stubbier, thicker bill, longer tail with square tip, and lacks yellow on wings and base of tail. Common Redpoll has a red cap, black chin, and lacks yellow on wings and tail.
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