It is found in forested areas, both coniferous and mixed woodland where it feeds on seeds of all kinds, especially of alder and conifers.

[3] The name is first recorded in written English in 1544 in William Turner's Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia.

The cap and the auriculas are greenish with a white bib and a rump that is a slightly striped whitish yellow.

It is strong although it is also slender like tweezers, in order to reach between the scales of spruce cones and alder fruit for the seeds on which they feed.

Adult male Eurasian siskins are bright green and yellow with a black cap, and an unstreaked throat and breast.

The wingbars of the Eurasian siskin are broad and yellow (with the tips white) and the bill is short with a decurved culmen.

Its breeding area is separated into two zones, both on each side of the Palearctic realm: the eastern coast of Asia and the central and northern part of Europe.

In China they breed in the Khingan Mountains of Inner Mongolia and in Jiangsu province; they spend winter in Tibet, Taiwan, the valleys of the lower Yangtse River and the south east coast.

[18] There is also a similar and closely related North America counterpart, the pine siskin (Spinus pinus).

Every few years they migrate southwards in larger numbers and the overwintering populations in the Iberian Peninsula are greatly augmented.

An alternative theory is that greater migration occurs when the preferred food of alder or birch seed fails.

The British range of this once local breeder has expanded greatly due to an increase in commercial conifer plantations.

The siskin also breeds in mixed woodland; while in winter they prefer stubble and crops and areas containing trees with seeds.

For this reason there is a German legend which says that siskins guard a magic stone in their nests that makes them invisible.

[25][15][9][19] They also visit cultivated areas and pasture, where they join with other finches in eating the seeds of various Asteraceae such as thistles, dandelions, Artemisia, knapweeds and other herbaceous plants, such as St. John's wort, meadowsweet and sorrel.

In summer their feeding is more varied, adding other herbaceous plants to their diet of conifer seeds, including goosefoots and other Asteraceae.

As part of the courtship the male plumps up the feathers of the pileus and rump, making itself bigger, extending the tail and singing repeatedly.

[19] This bird has two calls, both powerful but conflicting, one is descending and the other is ascending, their onomatopoeic sounds can be represented as "tilu" and "tluih".

[9][19] The song is similar to the other finches, a smooth and rapid twitter and trill with a long duration and which is occasionally interrupted by a stronger or shorter syllable.

[35] Poland, Gibraltar, Benin and Belgium have all issued postage stamps bearing the image of the siskin.

[11][36] In Saint Petersburg there is a statue of a siskin, as its colours are the same as the uniform worn by the students at an elite school in the city.

Elif Shafak, in the novel Three Daughters of Eve, mentioned a siskin in a pivotal scene in which the heroine, Peri, meets the charismatic and controversial Professor Azur.

When Peri entered Professor Azur's office, she found a siskin with yellow-green feathers and a forked tail trapped amid the shelves and stacks of books.