Bird Lore: Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch

The Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch is a winter bird of the inland western parts of the U.S. and Canada. The species has been seen in Edmonds twice, both events at Brackett’s Landing North and both in November. The first was a single sighting of a single bird in 2017. Two birds appeared in 2023 and stayed four days, long enough for many birders and park visitors to enjoy this rare visitor to the Western Washington lowlands.

The species inhabits alpine areas above tree line, as well as rocky areas on the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. It nests at high elevations near glaciers, talus slopes, rock piles, and cliffs. These finches tend to move in response to snow levels, descending to lower elevations when snow accumulates. They prefer open areas such as meadows and rocky hillsides but storms will drive them to human settlements where they will perch on structures such as buildings, fences and utility wires. In these circumstances they will come to bird feeders.

As with other finches and land-based birds, the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch feeds on both seeds and insects. It forages actively on open ground, hopping about on snow fields, glaciers, talus slopes and scree in its search for wind-blown food. Occasionally it will capture insects in flight. Insects are caught mostly during warmer months and include flies, crane flies, various beetles, weevils, cutworms, and scale insects such as pine needle scale. Seeds come from a wide variety of native and introduced plants, from bear grass to chickweed, parsnips and mustards.

Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches form monogamous pairs during breeding season. Both adults engage in courting behavior that includes drooping the wings. The males will wobble hop, fan their primary wing feathers, and raise their tails and wings while calling or singing. Bill nibbling most likely indicates a successful pairs between two birds. The preferred nest site is a concealed crack or hole in a rocky cliff.

The female builds the nest, sometimes with help from the male. It is a bulky cup made up mostly of mosses and lichens, lined with grass, wool, feathers, and hair.

Clutch size is two to six eggs that are incubated by both adults or the female only, depending on which source you read. (More recent sources note incubation by both adults.) Incubation lasts 12-14 days. Both adults have chick-rearing duties and the nestlings fledge at about 20 days. The adults feed them for at least another two weeks. There is one brood each year.

Denali is the highest peak on the North American continent. And the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch breeds at a higher altitude than any other North American species because it nests on the slopes of Denali, among other places. Collective nouns for any group of finches include a charm, a trembling, and a trimming. The oldest known Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch was a female that was six years and seven months of age when it was recaptured and re-released during a banding operation in Alaska.

Due to its remote nesting locations, population trends for the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch are not known. Partners in Flight estimates a global breeding population of around 200,000. It is a species of low conservation concern. Climate change is the chief conservation concern for this, and other species, that live in arctic, subarctic, and alpine habitats.

You can listen to the flight call of a Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch here: xeno-canto.org/352923. This video shows a flock of these finches feeding in the snow in Okanogan County.

— By Carol Riddell