Pine Siskin
Learn to identify the Pine Siskin by ear. Master the "zreeeee" phrase and tell it apart from similar species.
What the Pine Siskin sounds like
A long, fluttery jumble of high, husky buzzes and trills delivered from treetop or while circling high in the sky.
How to tell it apart
Lessons featuring the Pine Siskin
Ready to test your ear? Practice identifying the Pine Siskin's sounds in these interactive in-app lessons.
Where you'll hear it
Breeds across Canada, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and high elevations of the Rockies and Appalachians. Winter range highly variable: some stay on breeding grounds, others flood south through most of the United States and into northern Mexico during irruptions.
Boreal and montane coniferous forest (spruce, fir, hemlock, pine), mixed woodlands, alder and birch thickets, and a wide range of human-altered habitats including parks, gardens, and weedy fields—especially in winter.
Large southward movements are irregular and follow shifting conifer seed crops—some winters bring a flood, others almost none.
How to recognize it by sight
The Pine Siskin is a tiny, streak-lined finch best known for its nomadic, boom-and-bust winter movements. About the size of a goldfinch, it wears cryptic brown plumage heavily streaked with dark lines, accented by flashes of lemon-yellow in the wings and tail that sparkle when it flits about in tight, fast-moving flocks. Extremely gregarious, it descends on backyard feeders in noisy hordes during irruption years, then may disappear again for several seasons.