Pine Siskin
Spinus pinus
Also known as: Pine Finch
About This Species
This small, heavily streaked finch travels in noisy, irregular flocks that irrupt southward in some winters and stay north in others, so its appearance is genuinely unpredictable year to year. Listen for its rising, buzzy call and watch for flocks working conifer cones and feeder seed together, often mixed in with siskins' close relatives like goldfinches. Winter is the most reliable season to see large numbers, especially wherever conifer seed crops are heavy.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- Feeder watching from indoors or a modest distance is the easiest and least disruptive way to observe this species, since flocks are naturally tolerant of quiet, still observers.
- Wild birds are legally protected in the US and Canada, so nests and roosting birds should not be handled or deliberately flushed.
- If watching at a feeder, keeping the area clean helps prevent disease spread within these dense, mixed-species flocks.
LCAvesPasseriformesFringillidae
Seasonal Activity
3,384,355 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
All monthsThis month
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Fringillidae
Photo
Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.