Three Remarkable Rosy-Finches

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Three Remarkable Rosy-Finches
Written by Ariana Remmel

This is BirdNote.

Rosy-finches are mountaineers with style. The three species found in the US and Canada all wear pink on their bellies and wings. But spotting that namesake hue means trekking up some of the most rugged terrain on the continent.

The Grey-Crowned Rosy-Finch nests in rocky crags at higher altitudes than almost any other North American bird. They forage for seeds and insects along glaciers and icy rockpiles, ranging from Alaska to New Mexico.

         [Grey-Crowned Rosy-Finch]

Two rare rosy-finches live in the western US year round. For both Brown-capped and Black Rosy-Finches, frigid, barren peaks are home sweet home. During blustering blizzards, they take shelter in abandoned mineshafts and other cozy crevices.

         [Black Rosy-Finch]

And if the snow gets too thick to find food, these songbirds migrate downslope for easier meals. They’ll even flock to bird feeders, especially when they’re filled with tasty sunflower seeds.

         [Brown-capped Rosy-Finch]

Their preference for extreme environments make rosy-finch populations difficult to study. Thankfully, community scientists are helping to fill data gaps by logging observations of rosy-finches — on backcountry excursions and at backyard feeders.

For BirdNote, I’m Ariana Remmel.

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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Black Rosy-Finch ML25345478 recorded by Andrew Spencer. Brown-capped Rosy-Finch ML253474351 recorded by Andrew Spencer. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch ML224879861 recorded by Chris Wood.
Wind ‘QP02 0222 Wind coniferous fast wispy gusts with lulls’ recorded by Gordon Hempton for Quiet Planet.

BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2026 BirdNote July 2026
Narrator: Ariana Remmel

ID# finch-02-2026-07-07    finch-02

Reference:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Gray-crowned_Rosy-Finch/overview 
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown-capped_Rosy-Finch/overview  
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black_Rosy-Finch/overview