While with us, the Redpoll is nowise dependent upon the forests, but appears to seek the more open country by preference. It subsists chiefly upon seeds, gleaning them from the ground with much pleasant chatter, or seeking them in their winter receptacles. Redpoll again proves kinship with Goldfinch by eating thistle seeds, and with Siskin by his extravagant fondness for the alder catkin. Redpoll’s manner is very confiding; and we are sure that he would not begrudge us a share of his winter viands, if we cared for them. The author is no vegetarian, but he is bound to admit that a “simple diet of grains, fruits and nuts” makes for contentment among the birds, even at forty below zero.
As spring comes on, and the gentle hyperboreans prepare to return to their native heather, we see the deep-dyed crimson of full regalia on crown and breast. But during the actual breeding season, we are told by a competent observer in Greenland, Holboell, the male not only becomes exceedingly shy but loses his rosy coloring. It is hardly to be supposed that this loss of color is a protective measure, but rather that it is the result of the exhaustive labors incident to the season. Nature, in that forbidding clime, cannot afford to dress a busy workman in fine clothes. It is noteworthy in this connection, also, that caged Redpolls lose their rosy tints never to regain them.
No. 30.
PINE SISKIN
A. O. U. No. 533. Spinus pinus (Wils.).
Synonyms.—American Siskin. Pine Finch. Pine Linnet.
Description.—Adult male and female: Above brownish buffy; below creamy-buff and whitish; everywhere streaked with dusky or dark olive-brown; the streakings are finer on the head and foreparts, coarser on back and breast; wings fuscous, the flight feathers sulphur-yellow at the base, and the primaries edged with the same color; tail fuscous, all but the middle feathers sulphur-yellow at base. Bill comparatively slender, acute. Length 4.75-5.00 (120.6-127); wing 2.75 (69.9); tail 1.80 (45.7); bill .43 (10.9).
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; conspicuous general streakiness, sulphur-yellow markings of wings and tail, most noticeable in flight.
Nesting.—Nest: saddled upon horizontal limb of evergreen tree, well concealed from below, usually at moderate heights; very variable in structure, flimsy to massive and ornate; composed of small twigs (usually fir), and tree-moss, with a lining of fine rootlets and horse- or cow-hair, rarely feathers. An average nest measures externally 4½ inches wide by 2¼ in. deep; internally 2 in. wide by 1 in. deep. Eggs: 1-4, usually 3 or 4, pale bluish green lightly dotted with rufous and blackish, chiefly about larger end. Av. size .67 × .48 (17 × 12.2). Season: March-September, but most abundant in April; one brood.
General Range.—North America at large, breeding in higher latitudes, and in coniferous forests of the West to southern boundary of United States; also sparingly in northeastern United States; irregularly south in winter to Gulf of Mexico.
Range in Washington.—In summer coextensive with evergreen timber, but especially common in mountains just below limit of trees; in winter more localized, or irregularly absent.
Authorities.—Chrysomitris pinus Bonap. Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. pt. II. 1858, p. 425. T. C&S. L². Rh. D¹. D². Kk. J. B. E.
Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. B. E. P.
In designing the Siskin, Nature achieved another triumph in obscurities. The heavy streaky pattern, worked out in dusky olive on a buffy brown base, prepares the bird for self-effacement in any environment; while the sulphur-colored water-mark of the outspread wings barely redeems its owner from sheer oblivion. This remark applies, however, only to plumage. In behavior the Siskin is anything but a forgettable bird-person.
Taken at Longmire’s Springs. From a Photograph Copyright, 1908, by W. L. Dawson.
SIX LITTLE SISKINS.
“THE MOUNTAIN” AS A BACKGROUND.
Whatever be the time of year, Siskins roam about in happy, rollicking bands, comprising from a score to several hundred individuals. They move with energy in the communal flight, while their incessant change of relative positions in flock suggests those intramolecular vibrations of matter, which the “new physicists” are telling us about. When a bird is sighted alone, one sees that it is the graceful, undulatory, or “looping,” flight of cousin Goldfinch which the social Siskin indulges so recklessly.
Many of the notes, too, remind us of the Goldfinch. There are first those little chattering notes indulged a-wing and a-perch, when the birds are not too busy feeding. The koodayi of inquiry or greeting is the same. But there is another note quite distinctive. It is a labored, but singularly penetrating production with a peculiar vowel sound (like a German umlauted u), züm or zzeem. So much effort does the utterance of this note cost the bird, that it always occasions a display of the hidden sulphur markings of wings and tail.
