Only severe Winters drive these hardy midgets away from the bleak hills of home. I encountered a flock of about fifty in spruces near Moosehead Lake, Maine, when the temperature was 20 degrees below zero. They were twittering as cheerily as tho the sun shone and the day warm. Their warbling strains had a finer quality than our common REDPOLLS. They were busily going over the cones and seemed to be eating a larvae of some insect hidden in the segments.
Arctic America south to Ungava.
From western Alaska to Ungava. Casual to northern United States.
A tree 100–180 feet high distributed from southern Alaska to California east to Continental Divide.