The Evening Grosbeaks

One of my very favorite birds is the Evening Grosbeak. The birds are special to me because we only have them at our feeders for a fairly short period of time - April through mid-June. By July they have left us for higher altitudes where they happily feed on maple seed. The last two years however, we have had one family stay the summer and raise their chick here. I am certainly hoping that that happens again this year.

While both the Male & Female are pretty birds, the Male really steals the show. They have such beautiful coloring and I just love the shocking yellow "eyebrow" that they sport. And those huge, lime green beaks.

This year we appear to have a nice size flock. My sister has counted 10 Males, so we can safely assume there are 10 females too. As soon as dawn breaks, the morning air is filled with their sharp "Chirr" call. It's not particularly pleasant, but it sure does carry well!

As you can see, our feeders are as busy as small airports right now.