The Pine Siskin, Carduelis pinus, is a small finch.
Adults are brown on the upperparts and pale on the underparts, with heavy streaking throughout. They have a short forked tail. They have yellow patches in their wings and tail, not always visible; otherwise, it appears to be a very small streaked sparrow.
Their breeding habitat is across Canada, Alaska and the western mountains and northern parts of the United States. The nest is well-hidden on a horizontal branch of a tree, often a conifer.
Migration by this bird is highly variable, probably related to food supply. Large numbers may move south in some years; hardly any in others.
These birds forage in trees, shrubs and weeds. They mainly eat seeds, plant parts and some insects. In winter, they often feed in mixed flocks including American Goldfinches and redpolls.
From the mantle to the rump, PineSiskins are buffy and broadly streaked with dark brown.
PineSiskins are irregularly common to abundant in their breeding areas—in other words, one year they might be found in abundance at a particular location, whereas the next year they are totally absent.
PineSiskins are the most frequently encountered member of the irruptive winter finches—a group of finches that breeds in the northern portions of North America and periodically stages major winter invasions into central latitudes of North America.
Pines are mostly monoecious, having the male and female cones on the same tree, though a few species are sub-dioecious with individuals predominantly, but not wholly, single-sex.
Pines are commercially among the most important of species used for timber in temperate and tropical regions of the world.
Pine plantations can be at risk of fire damage because pine resin is flammable to the point of a tree being explosive under some conditions.
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