Top 10 Winter Irruption Birds to Watch for at US Feeders This Winter

Updated October 21, 2026 · 10 min read

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Most birds you see in winter are either year-round residents or predictable migrants. Irruption species aren’t. They’re at the mercy of the boreal cone and fruit crop, and when that fails they push south, sometimes by hundreds of miles, in a single season. The next winter they may not appear at all.

Project FeederWatch defines an irruption as the sudden change in an organism’s population density — for birds, the movement of northern-wintering species south in years of low food. If you keep feeders going through winter, understanding which species irrupt, and when, is the difference between missing a once-in-a-decade sight and watching it from your kitchen window.

1. Pine Siskin

The most nomadic finch on the continent, and the one most people see first. Pine Siskins are small, heavily streaked brown finches with sharp thin bills and, when they flutter, flashes of yellow in the wings and tail. Their call is an unmistakable wheezy, rising zzzreeeee.

Cornell Lab describes them as ranging widely and erratically across the continent each winter, in response to seed crops. In big flight years they reach the Gulf Coast and Florida, and occasionally Bermuda (as happened in 2020–21).

At feeders: nyjer thistle, hulled sunflower and small chips of black oil sunflower. A mesh sock or fine-port nyjer feeder often draws them first.

This winter: Hoar expects them in eastern boreal forest and the northeastern US, holding to woodland rather than crowding feeders where cone crops are good. A small to moderate southeastern flight is possible.

2. Redpoll

In 2024 the American Ornithological Society lumped Common Redpoll, Hoary Redpoll and Lesser Redpoll into a single species, now simply called Redpoll, on genetic evidence. If you have older field guides, the name changed but the birds didn’t.

Redpolls are tiny, streaky finches with a bright red forecrown, a small black chin patch, and a pink flush across the male’s breast. They’re endlessly acrobatic, often feeding upside down on birch and alder catkins. In extreme cold they roost in snow tunnels.

Their movements track the birch seed crop across the boreal. In big years they reach Kansas and Oklahoma, and in 2020–21 reached New Mexico.

At feeders: nyjer and finely hulled sunflower. Often flock with Pine Siskins.

This winter: not a big flight expected. Hoar writes, “we do not expect a big flight this year, but a small flight wouldn’t surprise us either, especially in the western Great Lakes region.” If any sizable flight does happen, look for a Hoary-type bird among the flock.

3. Evening Grosbeak

A chunky, big-headed finch with a massive pale conical bill. Males are golden-yellow with black-and-white wings and a bold yellow eyebrow stripe over a dark head. Females are silvery gray with a yellow wash on the nape.

Evening Grosbeaks were once a common winter feeder bird across the East and Midwest. Not any more. Cornell Lab reports a cumulative decline of about 84% between 1966 and 2023. Partners in Flight lists them as an Orange Alert Tipping Point species. A flock at your feeder in 2026 is a much bigger deal than the same flock in 1986.

At feeders: black oil sunflower on a large hopper or platform. Their bill can shell heavy seeds most feeder birds struggle with.

This winter: the northeastern US had small to moderate irruptions in each of the last two winters, and Hoar writes, “A small movement is quite possible again south of the boreal to southern New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts as well.”

Black oil sunflower is the single seed most likely to hold a passing grosbeak or crossbill flock long enough for you to see them. Honest drawbacks: it’s the most-eaten seed in almost every yard, so a bag empties fast; it draws squirrels; and hulls collect under the feeder and can inhibit grass growth. More on hulls.

4. Pine Grosbeak

The largest finch in North America. Cornell notes they “dwarf every other finch in the trees.” Males are rosy pinkish-red on the head, breast and back with gray belly and white-barred dark wings. Females are grayer with an orange or reddish wash on the head and rump.

Unlike most winter finches, Pine Grosbeaks eat fruit as well as seed. Their flights south track the mountain-ash berry crop above all else. In a good yard, a flock may spend weeks stripping fruit from a single crabapple.

At feeders: black oil sunflower and suet on platform or hopper feeders. In fruit-planted yards, they may not touch the feeder at all.

This winter: a quiet year expected. Hoar writes, “we do not expect much of a Pine Grosbeak flight after last year’s modest Great Lakes and northeastern United States irruption.”

5. Red Crossbill

A stocky finch with a bill whose tips actually cross, an adaptation for prying seeds out of closed conifer cones. Males are brick-red to orange-red overall with dark wings; females are yellowish-olive with gray wings.

Here’s the strange part. Ornithologists recognize at least 11 different call types of Red Crossbill, each with a distinct flight call and each specialized on a different conifer. Bill size varies with cone size, and the types may represent separate cryptic species. They’re deeply nomadic year-round, following whichever cone crop is best.

At feeders: uncommon visitors, but will take black oil sunflower, especially in the shell.

This winter: Hoar expects Type 12 to dominate the Northeast with a good white pine crop, and Type 2 crossbills currently moving eastward to concentrate in the western Great Lakes before shifting east through winter.

6. White-winged Crossbill

Slightly smaller than the Red Crossbill, with the same crossed bill but two prominent white bars on each black wing. Males are rosy pink to raspberry; females are yellowish olive-brown with the same wing bars.

Where Red Crossbills spread bets across many conifers, White-wings are spruce and tamarack specialists. Failure of those specific cone crops sends them south.

At feeders: rarely. Best bet is mature spruce or larch on the property.

This winter: Hoar describes the flight as concentrated in Alaska–British Columbia and the East, with “scattered flocks and individuals randomly moving around the Great Lakes region.”

7. Purple Finch

Not as extreme an irruptive as siskins or redpolls, but a modest flight bird that moves in numbers some winters and not others. A male Purple Finch looks like it was dipped in raspberry juice, cleaner and more evenly colored than the streakier House Finch. Females have a bold white eyebrow that female House Finches don’t. Full ID guide.

Cornell reports the population has declined about 32% since 1966, partly attributed to competition with the introduced House Finch.

At feeders: black oil sunflower first, then millet and safflower.

This winter: back-to-back flights are possible thanks to spruce budworm outbreaks boosting breeding productivity. Most birds are expected to concentrate in the northeastern boreal, with the chance of small late-winter flights southward.

8. Bohemian Waxwing

Larger and grayer than the more familiar Cedar Waxwing, with the same crest and black mask, a peach blush on the face, bold white wing patches, red waxy tips on the secondaries, a yellow tail band, and, crucially, rusty undertail coverts (Cedar Waxwing’s are white).

Their flights south are driven by the mountain-ash, crabapple and other fruit crops in the boreal, not by seeds. Where finches irrupt at feeders, Bohemians irrupt on ornamental fruit trees, and a flock of 50 can strip a crabapple in an afternoon.

At feeders: not seed feeders. Plant native crabapple, mountain-ash, serviceberry, hawthorn or winterberry.

This winter: a quiet flight expected. Hoar writes there is “a pretty fairly robust American mountain-ash fruit crop across large areas of the boreal forest that will hold birds to the north.”

9. Snowy Owl

This one’s different. Snowy Owl irruptions aren’t driven by food failure. They’re driven by food abundance. When Arctic lemming populations boom, Snowy Owls raise larger clutches (up to 11 eggs), and the surplus of young owls disperses south in fall to find hunting territory. Contrary to the old story, birds moving south in irruption years are typically fat and healthy, not starving. The research on this comes from Project SNOWstorm, a decade of tracking birds with satellite transmitters.

Snowy Owls look for open, flat, treeless country that reminds them of tundra: airport perimeters, coastal dunes, harbor jetties, farmland fenceposts, rooftops. Not backyards, and not feeders. But if you live near open country in the Great Lakes states, the Upper Midwest, the Northeast, or coastal Washington and Oregon in an irruption winter, it’s worth a drive.

The 2013–14 flight was a mega-irruption. Snowy Owls reached North Carolina and even Bermuda, and one Newfoundland observer counted more than 75 owls from a single vantage and 206 along one road. Truly big years happen once or twice a century.

What you can do: if you find one, keep well back. Repeated flushing wastes calories the bird needs to hunt. Cornell’s advice: enjoy from a distance and never bait an owl with live prey.

10. Blue Jay

A resident bird in most yards, but included in the Winter Finch Forecast for a reason. Blue Jays are extraordinary acorn cachers — Cornell estimates 3,000 to 5,000 acorns per bird per year — and their fall movements along the north shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario track the beechnut and oak mast crop. In poor mast years, more jays push south, and northern yards see unusual numbers arriving at feeders.

At feeders: whole peanuts in the shell, black oil sunflower, suet, cracked corn. Platform and hopper feeders. Full guide.

This winter: a good mast year in the East, so many jays will stay put. Hoar writes, “we suspect there will be an above average flight along the north shorelines of Lakes Ontario and Erie… The beechnut and acorn crop is quite good and widespread in the east, and birds should make it eastward.”

How to be ready

1. Keep nyjer fresh. Old, hard, dried-out nyjer is the reason many feeders miss siskin flights. Buy small bags more often. Wet seed guide
2. Have a platform or hopper feeder up with black oil sunflower, for grosbeaks that can’t perch on a tube
3. Plant fruit if you can. Native crabapple, mountain-ash and winterberry hold fruit into midwinter and bring in waxwings and grosbeaks
4. Watch eBird and rare bird alerts in your state through November and December
5. Take part in Project FeederWatch and the Christmas Bird Count. Irruption science depends on people noting what’s not at their feeder as much as what is. FeederWatch · Christmas Bird Count

Reading the forecast

The Winter Finch Forecast is published every year in late September at finchnetwork.org, currently compiled by Tyler Hoar. It’s free, and it covers all the finches above plus a few extras, with a state-by-state picture of who’s likely to move where. A birder in the northeast US who reads it in October will know before Christmas what to hope for, and where to hang the feeders.

Common questions

Related guides

• House Finch vs Purple Finch
• The Christmas Bird Count
• Project FeederWatch
• Winter bird feeding in the Upper Midwest and Northeast

Sources: Tyler Hoar, Winter Finch Forecast 2026–2027, Finch Research Network (finchnetwork.org), September 25, 2026; Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds, species accounts for Pine Siskin, Redpoll, Common Redpoll, Evening Grosbeak, Pine Grosbeak, Red Crossbill, White-winged Crossbill, Purple Finch, Bohemian Waxwing, Snowy Owl and Blue Jay; Cornell Lab, “Inside the Massive Winter Irruptions Known as Superflights”; Project FeederWatch, “What is an irruption?” and the Evening Grosbeak population analysis; Project SNOWstorm; National Audubon Society; American Ornithological Society, 2024 taxonomy update on Redpoll; Partners in Flight and the North American Breeding Bird Survey.