A flock of these crimson-crown gypsies feeding, talking and warbling, enlivens the dreariest Winter landscape. Often I have slid to one of these fiesta, when skiing and the merry crowd soon accepted me as one of them. They would alight on the skis, on a weed stalk within a few feet — or even on me! One unsuspicious bird once perched on my pipe stem and brushed my nose with its tail when looking into the bowl! The call notes and soft warblings are closely akin to those of the Goldfinch; even the dear-ee has the same plaintive intonation. Until 1928 they appeared nearly every Winter but since then there has been none in this part of Dutchess County. The pencil studies for the painting were made from the porch of my home.
Northern North America. In Winter, south irregularly to Virginia, Ohio, Colorado and Oregon.