Our garden has an entirely different complexion and a population very different from three weeks ago, or back in February. Now it’s the Grosbeak Garden. I can verify that they begin singing around 5:15 AM daily. And, boy, do they adore sunflower chips.
female at her feed
she on the left, he on the right
Males in uneasy dentente, which lasts about as long as it takes to snap a picture.
This is what these two males looked like a moment later. In battle. They seem to use their wings as the number #1 weapon, perhaps because any use of the grosbeak’s gross beak could prove lethal.
Sometimes the testosterone level rises to the point where a male Grosbeak will send off even one of the females, as has just happened here. This rfemale onthe right is hopping and fluttering backwards from the feeder.
I have seen males benignly share the feeder with a pair of tiny Lesser Goldfinches, even with the larger Flicker or a Steller’s Jay and Mourning Dove.
Today I had a couple of visiting Bay Area birders, laurel Feigenbaum and her friend Max, and we went first to North Mountain Park. There were several fine birds to watch but we got a grosbeak bonus (sorry, no pictures): a pair of Evening Grosbeaks. Talk about gross beaks!
The Black-headed Grosbeak is closely related to cardinals and American bunting. The Evening is actually a huge finch and sporadically present in the Rogue Valley. In their book, Guide to Birds of the Rogue Valley, Barbara Massey and Dennis Vroman call the Evening Grosbeak as an erratic spring visitor.
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