Justfolk's photos with the keyword: 21114-615b

Green-morph pine siskin

12 Jan 2021 4 62
We get lots of pine siskins at our feeders each winter. In terms of being colourful, they are a poor cousin to the goldfinches they often accompany. But the past few days we've been seeing a more brightly coloured pine siskin, this fellow. Unlike his siskin-friends, he is brighter in his yellow, and has a greenish cast over his back. I guessed he is what birders call a "Green-morph pine siskin." (And now my border friends have corroborated my guess.) Apparently, for some decades, many North American birders were misidentifying Green-morph pine siskins as Eurasian siskins. Here, in the most easterly part of Canada, an occasional Eurasian siskin is blown in by odd storms. Maybe one day one will come to our feeder, too.