Northern Finches in Winter

     One winter day, many years ago, several redpolls, which are a kind of northern finch down from the high Arctic tundra where they nest, swarmed through a large sweet gum tree on my lawn in Neffsville, Pennsylvania.  With binoculars, I saw that the redpolls were picking out and ingesting the tiny, dark seeds from the innumerable, bristly seed balls on that tree, and the seeds that peppered the snow below.  Redpolls came this far south that winter because of a scarcity of seeds in the Far North.   
     Now that winter is here again, I've been looking for wintering northern finches, including two species of grosbeaks, pine siskins, purple finches, two kinds of crossbills and two species of redpolls, in southeastern Pennsylvania, so far to no avail.  However, I have been seeing a few kinds of finches and grosbeaks at a feeder a bit north of Lake Superior in Ontario Canada via our computer. 
     All birds in the Fringillidae family have beautiful feathering, each kind in its own way.  Look for them in field guides to American birds or on-line to see their coloring, shapes and sizes.    
     All these species of northern finches are small, lively and colorful.  All prefer northern climates, and all, but the redpolls, live in mixed deciduous and coniferous forests in Canada, Alaska and the Rocky Mountains of the American west. 
     All these species winter in the north, unless their winter food supplies of berries, and seeds in coniferous cones, birch trees and grasses are scarce, then they drift south through that winter.  Their migrations south, therefore are sporadic, and often irruptive. 
     Some winters, some of these northern finches make their ways to southeastern Pennsylvania in big numbers.  I have seen seven of these northern species over the years, including evening grosbeaks, pine grosbeaks, siskins, purple finches, red crossbills, white-winged crossbills and common redpolls.
     One winter in the 1970's, several striking, male and female evening grosbeaks came to bird feeders I maintained in a woodlot in southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  I usually heard them before I saw them because they sounded much like the chirping of house sparrows and I knew there were no house sparrows around.  Those marvelous evening grosbeaks were the highlights of the feeders that winter.  These grosbeaks, incidentally hatch offspring in evergreen woods across Canada, Alaska and along the Rocky Mountains.   
     Several years ago, I saw a small group of pine grosbeaks in a thicket of small trees and shrubbery in farmland on a winter's day in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.  The pretty pink males and gray females were eating berries from a multiflora rose bush in that thicket.  Pine grosbeaks raise young in coniferous woods across Canada, Alaska and down the Rocky Mountains.
     I have seen small flocks of pine siskins more frequently than the grosbeaks wintering here, but not every winter by any means.  Siskins look like thin sparrows, are streaked, and have yellow in their wings and tails, which is especially visible when they fly.  That act and feed much like American goldfinches, including their chirping notes and feeding on seeds in evergreen cones, particularly those of eastern hemlocks.  Siskins rear youngsters in western Canada and the United States.      
     Purple finches are related to house finches, and come south more frequently than most of the other winter finches in eastern North America, but not every winter.  Male purple finches' feathering appear to have been dipped into black raspberry juice.  Females are brown and heavily streaked.  This species nests in mixed boreal woods in southern Canada. 
     I have experienced flocks of both kinds of crossbills here in Lancaster County, but only once or twice per species.  And both the red crossbills and the white-winged crossbills, when I saw them, were eating seeds from coniferous cones in planted patches of evergreens.  These closely related species, by a genetic quirk that proved useful, have beak mandibles that cross one another, allowing easier harvesting of seeds from evergreen cones.  The mandibles hold the cones open, while the crossbills' sticky tongues pull the seeds out from the scales.  
     Common redpolls and hoary redpolls are closely related birds that raise young on the Arctic tundra of northern Canada and Alaska.  As already stated, I saw many common redpolls one winter, but I have never seen the less common hoary redpolls. 
     All these northern finches eat various kinds of seeds in winter.  And all of them, except the closely related crossbills, come to feeders to eat seeds and grain.  It's at the feeders we are most likely to see most kinds of northern finches because they leave their shelter to dine at the feeders.  But with looking, and luck, we might spot some of these lovely northern birds wintering in the Middle Atlantic States, as elsewhere in North America.