ORANGE BIRDS SEEN IN NORTH AMERICA

Brambling

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Fringilla Montifringilla 

Males have orange throats throughout the year, while adult females have lightly colored grayish orange throats.

Adult breeding males: the bill is black while the head varies from mottled gray to completely black. The backs are solid black.

Non-breeding males: the head is mottled gray, the bill is yellow, and the back is mottled black, orange, and gray.

Females have gray heads and yellow bills throughout the year. The feathers on their backs are gray with orange/brown tips, which give the back a scaled appearance.

Juveniles resemble the females but are browner, with extensive pale brown tips to feathers on upperparts. Rump and belly are tinged dull yellow.

SIZE: measures about 5.5 - 5.3 inches in length.

WEIGHT: weighs about 17 - 30 grams.

Seeds, fruits, and insects.

BREEDS: birch and coniferous forests, and mixed conifer and deciduous woodlands.

NON-BREEDING SEASON: deciduous trees, along the edges of cultivated fields, grassy fields and in orchards.

BREEDS: Northern Europe and Asia.

WINTER: Southern Europe, North Africa, North India, Northern Pakistan, China, and Japan.

CALL: A sharp, nasal “zweeee” frequently given by the male during the breeding season.

There is also a musical “dweee” and a sharp “chink” note.

Alarm call is a sharper “zweee” note.

Flight call is a soft “chuc”.

SONG:  A series of sweet and melodious twitters, chirps, trills and fluty notes described as “zip chii tschrr” followed by larger wheezing “zweeee”.

These notes are sometimes interspersed with quieter twitters and a descending rattle.

NEST: The female builds a large cup of grass, heather, bark strips, moss and lichens, plant down, fur and feathers, and spider webs.

EGGS: 5 - 7 pale blue to olive-brown eggs with darker markings.

INCUBATION: 11 - 12 days, female fed by the male.

They form large flocks in the winter.

They forage mainly in low vegetation, and in bushes and trees, taking invertebrates from foliage, branches and tree trunks, during summer.

SOURCES: https://www.birds-of-north-america.net

                   https://en.wikipedia.org

                   https://animaldiversity.org

                   http://www.oiseaux-birds.com