Male: A stocky, bright yellow and black bird; has a yellow body, darker head with a bright yellow eyebrow; black and white wings. The conical bill is yellow in winter and pale green during summer.

Female: Similar to male, with softer colors, gray head and throat.

Immature: Same as female, but with a brown bill.

Nesting:

Female builds a cup nest of lichens, twigs, roots and mosses lined with finer materials, place at the end of a tree branch 20-100 ft. above the ground. Often built in a conifer tree. Female incubates 2-5 eggs that are blue or bluish-green with dark marks.

Feeding:

Feeds mainly on seeds of trees such as box elder, sugar maples, pines and tulip poplars. Also eats fruit, buds, nuts, insects, tree sap, and dirt and gravel for minerals and salt. Comes to bird feeders for black sunflower and safflower seeds.

RECOMMENDED FEED:

Rogue Chickadees Plus mix, Black Oil Sunflower, Safflower, Rogue Ultra Premium Wild Bird Mix. Shop Wild Bird Food.

RECOMMENDED FEEDERS:

Magnum sunflower feeders, tube feeders for mixed or sunflower seeds, any hopper feeder filled with sunflower or a sunflower/safflower mix. Shop Wild Bird Feeders.

Habitat:

An uncommon year-round resident with erratic spring and late-summer movements, especially in western Oregon. Breeding habitat is in coniferous woodlands and mixed forests at middle to high elevations. In migration and winter they can be found in lowland habitats, especially interior towns with big leaf maples visiting feeders in large flocks.

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS:

One of the largest finches with a characteristic undulating finch-like flight. Has an unusually large bill for cracking seeds, its main food source. Sheds the outer layer of its bill in spring, exposing the blue-green bill. It is an irruptive species, occurring in large numbers in some years.

COMPARE TO:

The American Goldfinch is smaller, breeding males have yellow faces and black “caps.” Black-headed Grosbeaks are orange and black with no “eyebrow.”

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