Tag Archives: Pine Grosbeak

Some Friday Birds

Ginger and I went out for an outing on the nearby trails mid-day today. The walking was tricky in mushy snow but the birdsong was up-lifting. My first singing Song Sparrows, lots of Brown Creepers and nuthatches, titmice, cardinals, and crows. One who was quietly perched beside the trail was this Pine Grosbeak.

The river is open again and we are seeing a lot of activity, including this handsome Common Merganser, looking for love in all the right places.

Cold weather coming so much of the river will freeze again but that’s life in March in Vermont.

Another Pine Grosbeak Encounter

As I wrote last week, we are experiencing an irruption of winter finches here in central Vermont and I saw my first Pine Grosbeaks, finally.  Here’s a recent eBird map showing sightings near here:

Reports of Pine Grosbeaks this calendar year.

Pine Grosbeaks seem to be a lot like Bohemian Waxwings — if you happen upon them, they are there in numbers and quite cooperative but often, if you get there a half-hour later, they are off to another feeding site.  I stumbled on a group of 13 females and juveniles this morning and took a few photos as they fed on the berries on the ground.

Pine Grosbeaks are one of the largest members of the finch family. The males are rosy-red, while the females are yellow. Juveniles are hard to distinguish as both males and females are similar in coloration.

Pine Grosbeaks tend to be rather cooperative and thus easier to photograph than twitchier species like warblers.

It’s fun to read of PIGR sightings throughout the Northeast — it is a great year for winter finches — just as forecast.

Pine Grosbeaks – finally

As I have noted before, a Canadian ornithologist, Ron Pittaway, each year issues a  Winter Finch Forecast.  He notes that there is a “widespread tree seed crop failure in the Northeast” this year.  It looks like a good year for winter birds — we’re already seeing a lot of Purple Finches, Dark-eyed Juncos, and hundreds of Pine Siskins.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen reports of sightings of gaggles of Bohemian Waxwings and Pine Grosbeaks all over Vermont.  Friends of mine have reported berry trees laden with birds and yet, I’ve yet to come close to one of the visitors.  Until today….

Last night, before a board meeting of the North Branch Nature Center, I was whining to Chip, the ED, about all the reports of Pine Grosbeaks.  He asked, “Have you seen them up at Rumney in the fruit tree?”

A female Pine Grosbeak feeding on fruit at Rumney School, Middlesex, VT.

Rumney School is about a half-mile up the road and so this morning, after an appointment, I drove by the school and noted some birds in the tree in front.  I carefully parked out back and grabbed my camera, aware that school is in session and guys wandering around with binos and cameras may look suspicious.  I got close enough to make out the Pine Grosbeaks and took a few shots and left.  The birds were used to people and just filling their craws with the red berries.

The neat outcome was that when I entered the sighting into eBird, it marked it as a new life bird.  I had not realized that I didn’t have Pine Grosbeaks so it turned out to be not only a year bird, but my #350 life bird.  Thanks Chip.