Wine-colored bird on a snowy branch

Pine Siskins flit about in the topmost canopy of seed-bearing trees. They’ll often cling upside down to branch tips to empty hanging cones of their seeds. Abundant seeds or tender shoots lure them to the ground to feed. Gregarious flocks are constantly atwitter with wheezy contact calls while feeding or during their undulating flight. Unusually convivial and unterritorial, they sometimes nest in loose colonies, continuing to forage in flocks away from the nests. Males sing from high perches and during circular courtship flights. Pairs may visit other pairs’ nests before and after brooding. During brooding, the female stays on the nest and the male feeds her. Winter flocks and individuals can be aggressive around food sources, challenging competitors by lowering their heads, spreading their wings and tail, and making faint threatening call notes. Aggressive lunges are the next step and may result in fights that can carry competing siskins several meters into the air. Opportunistic Pine Siskins may forage close to heavier-beaked birds, gleaning fragments of larger seeds they can’t crack themselves. And they’ll hop on the downy seed heads of dandelions, trapping them on the ground for easy picking. Pine Siskins sometimes migrate in flocks of several thousand.Back to top

Birdwatching at Bloomingdale Bog

Bird watching has become one of the most popular sports worldwide. In fact, over 60 million people in the US alone take part in the activity. That’s more than the 23 million who play basketball, the 24 million who play baseball and the nine million who play American football combined. So what’s the draw? Join Anne as she ventures out to one of the Adirondack Mountains’s most scenic birding spots with famed Naturalist Ed Kanze as she discovers the truly great past-time of bird watching and uncovers why this is your next favorite hobby.

If there is one thing about the Adirondack Mountains that I am constantly awed by, it is the way that the outer edges of the forest near the road hide an Edenic wildwood that fosters a sense of magnificent solitude and peace completely unknown and unobserved by passers-by. For many years I’ve driven by the entrance to Bloomingdale Bog, never thinking for a moment that the simple gate offered transit to another world. I’ve heard about the bog for years, but I’m an Irish girl and I’ve been in bogs before. I am also a city girl, born and raised, and traversing the Adirondack version of Ireland’s peaty quagmire has never held much appeal to me before. This year, however, I’ve been drawn to the wilderness and new experiences in general.

County Route 55 is one of my favorite roads to appreciate nature from the driver’s seat. I’ve often pulled over to take a photograph of some mystical thicket taken out of a Ridley Scott film or a maple tree decked out in magnificent red during the fall foliage season and I was a little excited to no longer be an observer of that world but a participant in it. When I arrived at the entrance to Bloomingdale Bog to meet seventh-generation Adirondack resident guide-nonpareil (according to Forbes Life magazine), Ed Kanze, it was 7:30 AM and still early enough that there was an otherworldly quiet lingering in the morning air. You may have a picture forming of an Adirondack Naturalist; a wide-brimmed hat, a well-worn and much-loved woolen sweater, sensible boots, and binoculars – am I right? Well, so are you. I am of the firm belief that an escape in the Adirondacks is as much a pastoral respite as it is an adventure and I relish in the sense of atmosphere intrinsically linked to Adirondack culture. Ed Kanze fits the part of an intrepid adventurer to a tee.

We embarked on our journey straight away and I was immediately struck that this was not what I was expecting when Bloomingdale Bog was selected as the site of our escapade. The trail does not run directly through the marsh, but rather on an elevated bit of earth, once the home of the Delaware and Hudson railroad (or D&H). A few short feet in and you find that this truly is the ideal area for our purpose; bird watching. The quiet afforded by the protection of the trees allows you to immerse yourself in birdsong; the rush of high, thin, whistled notes of the Golden-crowned Kinglet, the amusing “free-beer” of the Alder Flycatcher, the trill of a Dark-eyed Junco, the “first gear, second gear” of the Nashville Warbler, the jingle-bell-like trill of Cedar Waxwings. While I’m told that many serious birders go to places like Texas, where the Houston Audubon Society has erected bleacher-like seating on their properties from which you can observe the migrating birds, the opportunity to take a step into the bird’s world and become a part of it for a morning was profound; I can’t imagine being affected in the same way or taking away with me what I did were I sitting in bleachers among a throng of other spectators.

When I was little – say four or five – there was only one thing I wanted to be when I grew up. While some children want to be doctors or astronauts or dancers, I used to wish on dandelions that “someday my prince will come” and I would be a princess (not a queen, never a queen); thanks, in no small part, to Cinderella and Snow White and the flock of woodland animals who loved them so very, very much and birds who would eat right out of their hands. Well, that part of my dream I can check off my list. Armed with a tempting piece of organic breakfast sausage, the bold Gray Jay parents would fly down and land, gracefully, on my fingers, taking my tasty offering back for themselves and their fledgling. Even more a privilege – we visited with them just after their new baby was entering young adulthood; still dependent on mom and dad for food, but attempting to land on a moving target, not quite ready but making inspiring attempts. To have the chance to interact with something wild like this was a singularly touching moment that could never have occurred in another locale.

When we began our walk I asked Ed, “what is it about bird watching that people find so fulfilling?” I was both surprised and intrigued by his answer at first, but when we left the bog I understood completely. He said, “Bird watching is mostly about the hunt; in fact, it is another form of hunting. Bird watchers and hunters talk about their pursuits in the same way. It’s about being out in nature, in the wild places; about stalking, or waiting in quiet anticipation for something to come into view. Sometimes you lose, but always you win because every day is different, and Adirondack birds live in beautiful places. You never know what you’re going to find. Birding is about knowing habitats and the birds that live in them, but it’s also a game of chance. Today will be the day! That’s our hope.”

Photography © Ed Kanze. Used with Permission.

Nesting

Nest Placement

The female loosely attaches the nest toward the end of a horizontal branch, by preference in the middle heights of a conifer. The spot is usually well concealed by foliage, often by another branch directly above it. Pine Siskins often nest in loose colonies where neighboring nests can be just a few trees away.

Nest Description

Over the course of 5 or 6 days, the female builds a shallow saucer of twigs, grasses, leaves, weed stems, rootlets, bark strips, and lichens, 2.5–6 inches across. The male, who stays close, may contribute nest material as well. The female lines the 1 to 2.5-inch inner cup (up to 2 inches deep) with fur, feathers, grass, moss, or thistle down. She may complete the nest several days before egg-laying. Nests are only loosely attached to branches and can be vulnerable to gusty winds.

Nesting Facts

Behavior

Pine Siskins flit about in the topmost canopy of seed-bearing trees. They’ll often cling upside down to branch tips to empty hanging cones of their seeds. Abundant seeds or tender shoots lure them to the ground to feed. Gregarious flocks are constantly atwitter with wheezy contact calls while feeding or during their undulating flight. Unusually convivial and unterritorial, they sometimes nest in loose colonies, continuing to forage in flocks away from the nests. Males sing from high perches and during circular courtship flights. Pairs may visit other pairs’ nests before and after brooding. During brooding, the female stays on the nest and the male feeds her. Winter flocks and individuals can be aggressive around food sources, challenging competitors by lowering their heads, spreading their wings and tail, and making faint threatening call notes. Aggressive lunges are the next step and may result in fights that can carry competing siskins several meters into the air. Opportunistic Pine Siskins may forage close to heavier-beaked birds, gleaning fragments of larger seeds they can’t crack themselves. And they’ll hop on the downy seed heads of dandelions, trapping them on the ground for easy picking. Pine Siskins sometimes migrate in flocks of several thousand.Back to top

Pine Siskins are fairly common, but their numbers can be difficult to estimate due to the large and hard-to-predict movements they make each year. Partners in Flight estimates a total breeding population of 46 million, but numbers have declined over 2% per year for a cumulative decline of about 69% between 1966 and 2019. The Pine Siskin rates a 10 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score and is considered a Common Bird in Steep Decline. Domestic cats, red squirrels, hawks, jays, and crows prey on adult birds or on their eggs or young. Dense flocks of Pine Siskins seem particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of salmonella transmitted at feeders (more on feeder maintenance). Studies have shown local impacts on their populations from DDT and related pesticides as well as from cyanide used in gold mining. Pine Siskins’ fondness for mineral deposits can lure them onto dangerously busy roadways that have been salted to melt ice and snow. Loss of habitat from forest-clearing may be balanced by new, commercially planted coniferous forests, and by the Pine Siskin’s willingness to nest in shrubs and ornamental trees.

Credits

Dawson, William R. (2014). Pine Siskin (Spinus pinus), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (P. G. Rodewald, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, USA.

Lutmerding, J. A. and A. S. Love. (2020). Longevity records of North American birds. Version 2020. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Bird Banding Laboratory 2020.

Partners in Flight. (2020). Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2020.

Sauer, J. R., D. K. Niven, J. E. Hines, D. J. Ziolkowski Jr., K. L. Pardieck, J. E. Fallon, and W. A. Link (2019). The North American Breeding Bird Survey, Results and Analysis 1966–2019. Version 2.07.2019. USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD, USA.

Sibley, D. A. (2014). The Sibley Guide to Birds, second edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA.