Pinicola enucleator
Location: One female at seedcake feeder 5/2/09
|
|
The males are reddish with gray markings while the females are grayish, and have some yellow on their heads. They are approximately 9 inches long, and have a wingspan of around 14 inches. These are relatively tame birds, and often appear in small flocks. Feeds mostly on berries and seed. The Pine Grosbeak represents an ancient divergence of the ancestors of the bullfinches. Possibly, its ancestors were wind-blown individuals of a proto-bullfinch which arrived via the northern Pacific. True to their name, they "enucleate" berries, extracting the seed and ignoring the fruit. In most photos they berry guts all over their faces. Link Link Link Link Distribution photo photo Genus: Pinicola (Pine grosbeak) Family: FRINGILLIDAE (finches and honeycreepers) Order: Passeriformes (perching birds) Class: Aves (Birds) Phylum/Division: Chordata (Spinal chorded) Kingdom: Animalia (Animals) |