Pine Grosbeak

How to recognise it

• Heavy body, long tail and a stout bill with a curved ridge
• Two white wing bars and white tertial edges on a blackish wing in all plumages
• Male usually dark rose red with grey and black areas
• Female mostly greyish yellow, older females and young males show orange or brownish colouring

Call and song

In flight it gives fluty, clear "plyit" and "dju-djy" calls, while flocks give a softer "bytt-bytt-bytt". The song has a desolate ring: a short phrase of a couple of notes, somewhat like the display call of the Wood Sandpiper.

Where and when

Its normal southern limit in Sweden probably lies at the level of Siljan in Dalarna. It seems to be regular in western Medelpad, Ångermanland and Västerbotten, and in Norrbotten it occurs over almost the whole province but is rare near the coast. In some invasion years it turns up further south than usual. It is reported most in December and rarely reported from March to September.

Food and behaviour

It feeds on seeds, buds, shoots and berries such as rowan berries, lingonberries and bilberries. Outside the breeding season it often feeds in flocks, and in winter it can be completely fearless while eating rowan berries, sometimes right inside towns and villages. Its flight is fast, powerful and bounding. During breeding both sexes develop throat pouches where they store seeds for the young.