On the day before Christmas, I got a wonderful gift – pine grosbeaks descended into a crabapple tree right in my own yard. We studied the males, a beautiful pink, as they perched on twigs and bent down to get crabapple seeds. Their backs were beautifully scalloped with pink and gray.

The females were mostly gray, accented with a beautiful yellowish olive green.

The young of the year come across as mostly dark gray. The first time people see these first-year birds, many have difficulties identifying them. Some bird books show only the flashy, colorful adult males of each species.

Another reason that pine grosbeaks are difficult to identify is that they only come to the Bangor area every few years. And the second-year males are a deep red or sometimes a brick red, rather than the bright pink in bird books.

We get many calls at the Fields Pond Audubon Center, asking “What are these gray birds in my apple tree or on my feeder? I’ve never seen them before. They are not in my bird book.”

Sometimes they e-mail their photos to fieldspond@maine

audubon.org and sometimes they don’t quite believe Audubon naturalists at first because their gray bird, or their deep-red bird, doesn’t match the beautiful pink bird in their bird book. It takes a whole winter to see all the differences in individuals of this species. Then you don’t see them again for years. No wonder the pine grosbeak is a confusing species.

The pine grosbeak is also a very tame species. They let people get very close to them. Like other birds of the northern forest – such as the spruce grouse, or the gray jay, pine grosbeaks let people get close and don’t fly away. I believe the reason is that because the northern forest is so dense, there is more chance of survival in staying still than in flying away.

Pine grosbeaks also are naive about cars. They land on a back road to pick up grit, which helps them digest seeds. They fly away at the last second as a car comes along, sometimes too late. Slow down for birds in the road.

This is a wonderful winter to see pine grosbeaks. They are learning to come to platform feeders to eat sunflower seeds, as well as eating crabapples. Enjoy them all this winter, because they will likely be absent next winter.

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.