YELLOW BIRDS SEEN IN NORTH AMERICA

Evening Grosbeak

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Coccothraustes Vespertinus

Evening Grosbeak

Males are yellow and black with a prominent white patch in their wings. Their heads are dark with a bright-yellow stripe over the eye.

Females and juveniles are mostly gray, with white-and-black wings and a greenish-yellow tinge to the neck and flanks.

BILL: thick and cone-shaped, pale ivory (males) and greenish-yellow (females).

SIZE: measures about 6.3 - 7.1 inches in length, with a wingspan of 11.8 - 14.2 inches.

WEIGHT: weighs about 53 - 74 grams.

COLOR: yellow, greenish-yellow, black, and white.

Feeds mostly on seeds, especially seeds of certain deciduous trees. They will also feed on fruits, berries, tree buds, and insects.

Breeds in conifer or mixed forests, but winters in deciduous woodlands, suburban areas and semi-open countries.

Canada and the western mountainous areas of the United States and Mexico. It is an extremely rare vagrant to the British Isles.

CALL: A ringing “chirp” or “cleer”, and a loud “cleep” call. This cry is used by each bird to proclaim its place in a flock.

Although they are songbirds by lineage, they do not have regular songs.

They are bad singers. Their usual voice consists of a single screaming note. When they try to sing, the note is a single warbling call.

NEST: The female does most of the nest building collecting materials from the ground and breaking twigs from trees. The nest is a shallow loose cup made of small twigs and lined with grass, rootlets, moss, or fibrous bark and horse hair.

EGGS: 3 - 4 pale greenish eggs, lightly spotted with pale brown.

INCUBATION: 12 - 14 days, female fed by the male.

NESTLING PHASE: 13 - 14 days.

They are social birds that are often found in flocks, particularly in winter. They forage in treetops for insect larvae during the summer, buds in spring, and seeds, berries, and small fruits in winter.