Episode 31: Pine Siskin – Voice of the Wild

This is Illinois Extension’s Voice of the Wild. A new wild voice in just a moment, so find someplace quiet, take a deep breath, and enjoy.

This unassuming winter visitor flocks with goldfinches to stands of sweetgums and sycamores, where they use their sharp pointed beak to harvest seeds from hanging seedheads and leftover buttonballs. Some years their noisy and exuberant flocks are ubiquitous, visiting every finch feeder in the neighborhood, but their migration doesn’t always send them irrupting southward, so sometimes they’re all but missing. On those absent years you may still find a few among flocks of other finches; Look for the combination of strong streaking and a gentle wash of yellow in the wings.

This is the pine siskin (Spinus pinus) from the finch family Fringillidae. Several of the siskin’s vocalizations are hard to distinguish from other finches, though they tend to have a dry and rattling quality most other don’t..but Their habit of forming rambunctious flocks means that, even on a calm day, one or another individual will eventually give their characteristic strongly ascending call. On a lively day; they’ll all do it. Here’s the pine siskin again.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for our bird sounds. And thank you for tuning in to learn a new wild voice with Illinois Extension.