Red Birds in Vermont

In the Northeast Kingdom in January, a Pine Grosbeak works through a mountain ash while, 80 miles south in Burlington, a Northern Cardinal sings from someone’s forsythia. Both are red. That is where the resemblance ends.

Vermont’s red-plumaged birds divide into two ecologies that barely touch. There are the lowland birds - the ones that come to suburban feeders, that expanded northward through the twentieth century. And there are the boreal birds, the ones that winter above 2,000 feet in the spruce-fir zone, that most Vermonters never see at all.

The lowland birds

The Northern Cardinal is the most conspicuous and most recent. He was rare in Vermont before the 1960s and has pushed northward ever since, helped by the spread of feeders and milder winters. He holds territory year-round and sings in February when almost nothing else does. If you see a solid red bird at a Vermont feeder in January, it is almost certainly him.

The Purple Finch is the one most often confused with the cardinal. He is smaller, lacks the crest, and carries a different quality of red - more raspberry wash than fire-engine, the color settling unevenly across his head and breast. The House Finch, which looks similar, was introduced to New York in the 1940s and has since filled every Vermont suburb. The two are worth separating: the Purple Finch has a more deeply notched tail and a cleaner face pattern; the House Finch carries streaking on his belly all the way to the flanks.

The Scarlet Tanager arrives in May and breeds in the deciduous woodlands of the lower elevations. He is worth finding in late May when the males are freshest: the red is electric, the black wings absolute. He sings from the canopy constantly but stays high, and most people hear him before they see him.

Vermont is where the suburban bird and the boreal bird share a state but almost never share a habitat. The cardinal at the feeder and the crossbill in the spruce grove are answering entirely different ecological questions.

The boreal birds

Red Crossbills and White-winged Crossbills are nomads. Their presence in Vermont is tied not to the season but to cone crops. In years when spruce and fir produce heavily in the Northeast Kingdom and on the upper Green Mountains, crossbills appear in numbers; in lean years they move on. The crossed bill is fitted precisely to pry open conifer cones before they open - a specialization so specific that no other bird in Vermont feeds the same way. The Red Crossbill is brick-red with no wing bars; the White-winged Crossbill is rose-pink to red with two bold white wing bars that flash in flight.

The Pine Grosbeak is a large finch - bigger than a robin - that drops into Vermont’s higher forests in winter when berry crops fail further north. He is slow and confiding in a way that feels almost tame. His red is a muted rose-pink, strongest on the head and rump. The Northeast Kingdom is the most reliable area in the state for him. Some winters he does not come at all.

Species at a glance

Species	Red character	When present
Northern Cardinal	Full body red (male)	Year-round
Purple Finch	Raspberry head and breast wash (male)	Year-round
House Finch	Red head and breast, streaked belly (male)	Year-round
Scarlet Tanager	Bright red body, black wings (male)	May - September
Rose-breasted Grosbeak	Rose-red breast triangle (male)	May - September
Ruby-throated Hummingbird	Iridescent red gorget (male)	April - September
Red Crossbill	Brick-red, no wing bars (male)	Irruptive winter visitor
White-winged Crossbill	Rose-pink, white wing bars (male)	Irruptive winter visitor
Pine Grosbeak	Rose-pink head and rump (male)	Irruptive winter visitor

Where to look

The Green Mountain National Forest holds tanagers and grosbeaks at lower elevations in May, and crossbill habitat in the spruce-fir zone above roughly 2,500 feet. Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area in the Champlain Valley is a strong migration watchpoint for finches moving south in October. The Northeast Kingdom - Essex County and the forests above Newport - is the right place for Pine Grosbeaks and crossbills from November through March.

Cardinals are most easily found in Champlain Valley towns and the warmer river valleys of southern Vermont. Long-term monitoring shows their range has filled in substantially since the 1980s, and they now breed as far north as Burlington.

Vermont is one of the few states where a birder can stand on a hillside in January and be looking at, in the valley below, a bird from the suburban south and, in the forest above, a bird from the boreal north. Finding where that line runs is a more useful project than ticking the full list. Vermont’s red birds do not belong to the same world. They share a border.