Tuesday, October 30, 2012

More on the Evening Grosbeak

I am linking up my Evening Grosbeak with Wild Bird Wednesday and Nature Notes

First, I want to say so far my family and I made it safely thru the storm, our electric is on as I type this and I am happy to have a cup of coffee first thing this morning. The wind and rain was scary last night so I went to bed early. I hope all my blogger friends have also made it thru the storm safely. Maryland has had heavy rains and winds on the east side of the state and blizzardlike conditions and snow on the west side of the state. It was a very strange storm.

I was a happy birder to be one of the few people last weekend to have a "rare" visitor to my yard. The Evening Grosbeak is another species of bird like the Pine Siskins for Maryland birders to see in an irruptive year. Irruption is like a migration of birds moving south due to the availability of seeds and their food source.


The first day I noticed the Evening Grosbeaks there were three of them, the second day I only saw one. I was told that I was seeing one female and two immatures.


The Evening Grosbeak is a larger size finch around 8 inches. Their breeding habitat is coniferous and mixed forest across Canada and the western mountain area of the United States. The adult has a short black tail, black wings and a large pale bill. The adult male has a bright yellow forehead and body. You can see the adult male here male Evening_Grosbeak . The female is mainly olive-brown and greyer on the underparts with white patches on the wings.


The Evening Grosbeak mainly eats seed, berries and insects. On the photo above you can see a faint yellow collar. The Grosbeaks were in  my yard and visiting my sunflower seed feeders for at least a day and a half before they moved on. I wished they would have stayed longer, maybe I will see another group arrive again this winter. I will be on the lookout for any new bird arriving due to the irruption.



To see more beautiful and wonderful photos please visit: Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday and Nature Notes.
Thanks to Stewart for hosting Wild Bird Wednesday and thanks to Michelle for hosting Nature Notes.

63 comments:

  1. Good to hear you are safe and have that cup of coffee! I can bear many burdens , but no coffee is not one of them-hahah!

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  2. Your storm even made the news downunder - so it MUST have been a doozy! So glad to hear you are all right!! Selfishly glad too - your photos are wonderful, as usual!! Have a great (calm?!) day!!

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  3. great shots Eileen, so far I have just had the single male. Hoping for more.

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  4. My dear Eileen
    I hope that you are all well and safe .Take care yourselves and I wish it will pass this thing without many disasters . My thought are with you !
    Olympia

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  5. Hi Eileen!
    I'm also glad that your are safe. We always hear about storms in USA here in Sweden too.
    Nice bird photos! I'm not sure if we have that sort? Like your birdfeeders!
    Thanks for your comment!
    Take care! /Pia

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  6. Relieved to hear you are safe at this time . . . thank you for being our personal "birder."

    It saddens me to think of the birds and animals being destroyed in Sandy's wrath . . . as well as human life.

    Be safe Eileen . . .

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  7. Dearest Eileen,
    I just visited Barbara and knew you also are in a bit of affected area. How scary is must have been!!! Our roof of the carport was blown off several years ago.
    Happy to know you are al right and I do hope your garden is not damaged at all.
    Evening_Grosbeaks are SO lovely, my friend!

    Sending you lots of love and hugs from Japan, xoxo Miyako*

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  8. Eileen here we also weathered the storm last night ..no power outage..thank God as I sit here visitng you. No birds to be seen through it all..I worried about my feathered friends..wondering where they shelter through the fierce wind storm..Perhaps I may see some this a.m. Nice photos here as usual.
    Glad the worst is over in your world.

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  9. I am so glad you posted this as I would have assumed any yellowish bird at my feeders was a goldfinch. (Can you tell I'm a novice birder?) Now I will look more closely!

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  10. So glad you are safe Eileen! We have had lots of coverage on our news over here and it all looks very scary and dramatic, awful for all those affected!

    Lovely to see your Evening Grosbeaks, they remind me very much of our Greenfinches. The bad weather may well bring you other interesting birds!

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  11. Love your beautiful Evening Grosbeak visitors.
    I'm glad you made it thro the storm unscathed, Eileen.

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  12. So glad that you made it through the storm ok.

    It makes me happy when the rose-breasted Grosbeak makes their appearance, in the Spring, at our feeders. I know I would be happy seeing the Evening Grosbeak too. Great pictures!

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  13. So pleased you and the feeders made it through the bad storm Eileen. I think you will get morer Grosbeaks into the winter, making for more wonderful shots of them.

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  14. Wow! What a gorgeous bird ~ Very professional photography ~ (A Creative Harbor)

    ps. ArtMuseDog and I are doing well ~ minimal damage from the storm ^_^ ~ Hope others fared as well.

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  15. Glad you're safe and weathering the storm gratefully!

    These birds are so pretty, and your capture of them are fantastic!

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  16. Hi Eileen...I am so glad for you to have power and, that you are safe!
    What a treat to have the Evening Grosbeak visit,the males are so colorful!! I hope to have some to..we used to have them in big flocks all winter years ago, but haven't seen only a few over the years !!
    I have power now as you can tell, but it is raining very hard, with still some good winds!!
    Grace

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  17. Lovely photos of the birds!!
    We didn't lose our power either. Yes, those winds were scary. Just a rainy day today. I'm looking forward to seeing some sun again. : )

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  18. Glad to know you are okay.

    And all these birds are okay too.

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  19. I am glad that you are all safe after the gale.We saw it on TV. I hope that there are no casualties.
    Your photos of this beautiful bird are fabulous, Eileen! Thanks for sharing.

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  20. I heard about the storm on TV and I'm happy to hear from you.
    I hope they do not become other disasters.
    As always your photos are beautiful!

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  21. i'm glad you've kept power so far!

    lovely birds, they are! their olive/green feathers tinged with yellow are so pretty.

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  22. Glad you made it safely through the storm.
    The evening Grosbeak is not common here, I've only seen it once and then very briefly.

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  23. Nice little visitor you have there. I haven't seen one yet. Glad you guys made it through!

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  24. How did I miss that one? beautiful post Eileen. Hope you are doing fine in this hard moment!

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  25. Happy to hear you made it through okay Eileen. It was indeed a very strange storm. Loved your little Evening Grossbeak photos!

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  26. lovely birds but that is a great storm you have had, all the best to you.



    peter

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  27. You certainly got some wonderful photos of your visitor!
    Glad you made it through the storm. I just heard from my son that all is well in his part of DC.
    We are currently getting snow. :)

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  28. Happy to hear that ypu are safe over there we have heard a lot about the storm ,nice shots of the birds ,nette

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  29. Great shots of the birds. I'm glad you are doing o.k. in the storm.

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  30. Glad you made it through the storm! We don't get Grosbeaks at the feeders, but they're handsome birds! I wish we would see them.

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  31. so glad to hear you made it through safely!! and that your power is ON!!

    i could never fall asleep when we had those hurricanes that barge in during the night! how did you do it??

    beautiful Grosbeak pic's!! we don't have them here!!

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  32. I am pleased the storm didn;t cause you too many problems and that you can have hot drinks. These pictures are brilliant, such big beaks. From Findlay

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  33. Happy to know you are safe..and of course to see more of the grosbeaks. Stay dry!

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  34. Beautiful birds and very nice to see them in your yard.
    I'm glad you came through the storm OK.

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  35. Fantastic images of a great bird Eileen!!!

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  36. Great shots of this nice bird ! Glad nothing happend to you during this storm - i saw pictures from it - no good ! Thank you for dropping by my waxwing ;) Greetings from Liva

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  37. Najważniejsze, że Twoja rodzina jest bezpieczna. PiÄ™kne ptaki odwiedziÅ‚y TwĂ³j ogrĂ³d i dużą przyjemnoÅ›ciÄ… patrzyÅ‚am na ich zdjÄ™cia. Pozdrawiam.
    The most important thing that your family is safe. Beautiful birds visited your garden and a great pleasure looking at their pictures. Yours.

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  38. Dear Eileen,Good to hear you are safe!I watch the storm on tv!What a shame!I pray for all those people!I just read your comment in Olympia's blog!Your shots are amazing!Lovely colors on these beautiful birds!Wish you my friend all the best!
    Dimi..

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  39. They are beauties!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

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  40. Glad to hear you are safe. We heard on TV Maryland was affected too so I was concerned for you and all the other bloggers in the path of Sandy, which was an awfully big path. Your visitor is very handsome and you have captured it well.

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  41. Wonderful photos and thanks for the info to go with them.

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  42. Nice photos, and I'm glad you made it through the storm okay.

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  43. I like the first and second shots!

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  44. This is a great post and a wonderful meme. I admire ou for the quality you bring to it.

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  45. Great shots of the Grosbeaks! Glad you had no ill effects from Sandy. I did not hear much about problems in Baltimore. We had no problems, though many in Frederick did.

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  46. Good to know that you are safe, Eileen. Great photos.

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  47. Hi Eileen, I'm glad to hear you came though the storm okay and still have power.
    That little grosbeak is so pretty. What a great visitor to your yard.

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  48. Glad all is okay in your part of the world. Such a nasty storm! How cool you got the Grosbeak in your backyard.

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  49. Good to hear you and your family made it safely through the storm. I've never seen an evening grosbeak, it looks quite charming in your pictures. :)

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  50. Glad you're safe!

    The evening grosbeak is very handsome, quite like our greenfinch in looks!

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  51. Very nice images! Lots of migrants in our area of west-central Florida now. Glad you made it through Sandy okay!

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  52. We just had some wind and rain also. I have a junco here but would love to see one of these guys...Michelle

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  53. congrats to your rare visiton in your garden. It looks gorgeous.

    I´m so happy you made it through the storm. The internet world has made a huge change when it comes to things like that because you always think...is any of my friends living there? It´s kind of scary even if my corner of the world is rather safe. Great to hear you are safe.

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  54. How fortunate you are to have such a lovely bird visit your feeder. I have never seen an Evening Grosbeak but I did have a brief visit by a pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks a couple of years ago. Haven't seen them since.
    Glad you avoided the brunt of the storm.

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  55. Glad you are ok hope you see lots of birds at your feeder.

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  56. Glad to hear you are safe too. I just love it when little birds come to eat at the feeder. Your captures are so nice.

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  57. Beautiful bird pics! It must be great feeling to have a feeder and the birds around!

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  58. Glad to know that the storm did not affect you adversely.
    Lovely captures!

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  59. I am so glad to know you and yours are all safe from the storm effects. And I'm glad the grosbeak decided to hang around for a while -- great pictures.

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