Linaria tephrocotis Swainson, 1831[2] The gray-crowned rosy finch or gray-crowned rosy-finch (Leucosticte tephrocotis) is a species of passerine bird in the family Fringillidae native to Alaska, western Canada, and the north-western United States.

[3][4][5] Recent mitochondrial DNA evidence shows the rosy finches are all indeed very closely related and can be easily confused with one another.

Alternative common names include: Roselin à tête grise (in French), Schwarzstirn-Schneegimpel (in German), and Pinzón Montano Nuquigrís (in Spanish).

The gray-crowned rosy finch has a wide range[12] and large numbers throughout Alaska, and western Canada and the United States.

A small number of gray-crowned rosy finches winters on the mainland in South-Central Alaska and visits feeders there.

The other taxa: littoralis, tephrocotis, wallowa, and dawsoni are found from the Canadian and American Rockies and migrate south to the western United States.

[1] L. t. tephrocotis summers from Montana to the Yukon, while littoralis breeds closer to the coast, from northern California to west-central Alaska.

In the summer their breeding habitat is rocky islands and barren areas on mountains from Alaska to the northwestern United States.

[9] When not breeding they form large flocks of over 1000 individuals which are sometimes known to include snow buntings (P. nivalis), Lapland longspurs (C. lapponicus), and horned larks (E. alpestris), as well as other rosy-finch species.

[4][9] They build a cup nest in mid-June at a sheltered, hidden location on the ground or on a cliff and are monogamous.

Chicks continue to be fed by their parents for about two weeks after leaving the nest in late July or early August.

[6] In the winter they eat seeds from weeds and grasses such as Russian thistle (E. exaltatus), mustard, and sunflower (H. annuus).