Pine Grosbeak

The Pine Grosbeak is the largest finch in North America, a plump, long-tailed bird with a stubby, curved black bill well suited to crushing seeds and buds. Adult males are dusky rose-red to raspberry over most of the body with gray flanks and two white wing bars, while females and immature males are soft gray-olive with a mustard-yellow to russet wash on the head and rump. Juveniles resemble females.

Pine Grosbeaks breed in remote boreal and subalpine spruce-fir forests across Canada, Alaska, and mountainous parts of the western United States, as well as across northern Eurasia. They are famously tame and unhurried, often allowing close approach as they methodically pluck buds and seeds from trees and shrubs.

Key Field Marks

• Large, chunky finch with a long notched tail
• Short, thick, curved black bill
• Two crisp white wing bars on dark wings
• Males: dusky rosy-red body with gray belly and flanks
• Females/immatures: gray body with yellow-olive to russet head, nape, and rump

Similar Species

• Purple Finch and House Finch: both much smaller with slimmer bills and less extensive color wash.
• Red Crossbill: similarly reddish in males but has distinctively crossed mandibles and lacks white wing bars.
• Common Redpoll: much smaller with a red cap and black chin, unlike the grosbeak's uniformly colored head.

Habitat

Pine Grosbeaks favor open coniferous and mixed boreal forest, subalpine spruce-fir stands, and forest edges, often near berry-producing shrubs like mountain ash.

Range

The species has a circumpolar distribution, breeding across the boreal zone of Canada and Alaska, in the mountainous West of the United States, and across Scandinavia, Russia, and Siberia.

Migration

Most populations are short-distance or irruptive migrants, wandering irregularly southward in winter when cone and berry crops fail farther north, sometimes appearing well south of the usual range in flocks feeding on ornamental fruit trees.

Behavior

Pine Grosbeaks are notably tame and deliberate, moving slowly through trees and shrubs while feeding, often in small flocks. They are far less flighty than many other finches and can sometimes be approached quite closely.

Voice

The call is a clear, whistled "pui-pui-pui" or musical warble; the song is a rich, slow warbling similar to that of a Purple Finch but softer and less hurried.

Feeding

Diet consists mainly of buds, seeds, and berries of conifers, mountain ash, crabapple, and other trees, along with some insects fed to nestlings.

Nesting

Nests are shallow cups of twigs and rootlets, often built low in a conifer near the trunk. Females lay 2-5 eggs and incubate alone, while both parents help feed the young once hatched.