As I was finishing helping a patron one day at work, movement outside the library windows caught my eye. Several ornamental crab-apple plantings line the east side of the building; frozen fruit still clung to the bare branches. Looking intently, I realized there were several pine grosbeaks in one of the trees.

What a great surprise! I love these birds, and hadn’t seen them for a couple of years. Although the “Birds of North America” range map shows Northern Maine to be part of their range, they are primarily winter visitors in this part of the state.

These are birds of the subarctic and boreal forests of Canada and Alaska; there are also small breeding populations in the western mountains and in western coastal forests. In the East, they are known to “irrupt” from their normal range in years when food sources are scarce.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this may be a year when more pine grosbeaks move south. The lab reports, “cone crops and birch seed crops range from poor to good across northern Ontario, but very few northern areas have excellent crops. Many crops are patchy or spotty with some trees having good crops while nearby trees have poor crops, and on the Canadian (Precambrian) Shield of central Ontario including Algonquin Park, seed crops are very poor on most tree species.”

Pine grosbeaks depend in winter on the seeds, fruit, and buds of many tree and shrub species, such as elm, birch, mountain ash, crab-apple, spruce, pine and juniper. They may also come to backyard feeders for sunflower seeds.

The birds I was watching were gobbling up the fruit on the crab-apple tree as fast as they could. It was quite comical to watch them; they often did not pause between mouthfuls, but just kept plucking each little berry that came within their reach. As a result, the fruit would gum up on their beaks until it appeared as though bizarre growths sprouted from their bills. Only occasionally would they rub their beaks against a tree branch to clear them. What a riot!

The most endearing trait of this bird is its lack of fear around people. The BNA species account describes it as “a large, unwary finch,” and this is certainly apt. They did not move even when I had gotten to within a few feet of them. And it was because of this I got to enjoy another trait: The soft call notes they whispered to each other as they fed. These notes were often two or three syllables-“tee-tee.tee-tee tew,” and seemed to be a constant reassurance that all was well.

The birds visited the trees the next day, and again it was a delight to have them around. Inevitably, the fruit ran out, but perhaps they are elsewhere on the University of Maine campus. I’d like to think I have a chance of seeing them again.

NEWS bird columnist Chris Corio can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net