Pine Siskin

Flocks of tiny Pine Siskins may monopolize your thistle feeder one winter and be absent the next. This nomadic finch ranges widely and erratically across the continent each winter in response to seed crops. Better suited to clinging to branch tips than to hopping along the ground, these brown-streaked acrobats flash yellow wing markings as they flutter while feeding or as they explode into flight. Pine Siskins are very small songbirds with sharp, pointed bills and short, notched tails. Their uniquely shaped bill is more slender than that of most finches.

Only a single Pine Siskin came to the feeders at Richlands, Va. (February 2015).

Pine Siskins are brown and very streaky birds with subtle yellow edgings on wings and tails.

House Finches are small-bodied finches with fairly large beaks and somewhat long, flat heads. Adult males are rosy red around the face and upper breast, with streaky brown back, belly and tail

House Finches are small-bodied finches with fairly large beaks and somewhat long, flat heads. Adult females aren’t red; they are plain grayish-brown with thick, blurry streaks and an indistinctly marked face.