Pine Grosbeak
Evening Grosbeak
PINE GROSBEAK
Pinicola enucleator leucura (Müller)
Description.—About the size of a Robin; a small bunch of bristling feathers over the nostrils; bill sparrow-like, but upper mandible somewhat curved like a parrot’s. Adult male: Gray, suffused with soft rose-red, principally on the crown, rump, upper tail-coverts, and breast; wings and tail dark brownish gray, the wings with two prominent white bars. Adult female: Gray, the crown, rump, upper tail-coverts, and breast more or less strongly suffused with yellowish or olive; the wings and tail as in the male. Immature males resemble the adult female, but are brighter. Length: 9 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A rare and irregular winter visitant recorded from many sections of the Commonwealth, but doubtless of most frequent occurrence in the more northerly counties.
The Pine Grosbeak has been well named. So fond is it of coniferous trees and the food it finds among the needles and buds that its bill is frequently covered with resinous substances. In Pennsylvania the bird also eats the berries of mountain ash, sumac, and similar plants. It is sometimes quite unsuspicious, being unacquainted with the ways of man, and will allow the observer to approach very closely. The call-note is a clear, bell-like whistle; its full song is rarely to be heard in this latitude. (See illustration, [page 103].)
PURPLE FINCH
Carpodacus purpureus purpureus (Gmelin)
Purple Finch
Upper, Female; Lower, Male
Other Name.—Linnet.
Description.—Size and general proportions of English Sparrow; nostrils covered with small, bristly feathers; tail slightly forked. Adult male: Head and breast rosy pink, not purple, some of the feathers with dusky tips, and a darker streak through the eye; back brownish gray, streaked and suffused with rose-color; wings and tail brownish; belly whitish; sides somewhat streaked with brownish. Adult female: Very sparrow-like in appearance, in fact closely resembling a female English Sparrow, but the whitish underparts heavily streaked with dark brown. The immature male is much like the female, and this plumage is held through the first nesting season, the subsequent moult leading into the rose-red plumage of the full adult. Length: A little over 6 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A fairly common and regular migrant throughout, from mid-March to mid-May and from September 15 to October 31. As a summer resident it is found only in the northern and mountainous counties, and it is decidedly local as a nesting bird. It is irregular, though at times common, in winter.
Nest.—A neat structure, with wide, full cup, constructed of plant-stems and fibers, lined with finer materials, placed in a conifer, orchard tree, or sapling at from 20 to 40 feet from the ground. Eggs: 3 to 5, pale blue, wreathed about the larger end with spots and lines of black.
The lovely Purple Finch is all too little known. It occurs at some time during the year at every locality in Pennsylvania, yet it is not a familiar bird. The song alone should win it wide acclaim as a bird-neighbor, for, delivered from the top of a tree, or from a vine or weed, it is one of the brightest, most varied of our bird melodies and is given with such enthusiasm that we recognize in the singer a canary-like interest in prolonging the performance.