Once, it was believed the evening grosbeak was a finch of the night. In the 1820’s, Joseph Delafield had only ever seen the bird and heard its twangy call at dusk and assumed it a species accustomed to the gloom of darkness. His theory took hold, and the grosbeak was christened with the inaccurate moniker of ‘evening’ forever. It seems silly to think of this vibrant bird existing solely in the dark when its plumage is something akin to the light of the sun. Males appear dusted in ochre and sport wide, luminous crowns of yellow across their foreheads, while females are a grey so soft it’s almost lilac, and display a subtle shawl of golden feathers around their necks as if the light has become trapped there, thickening and churning into the vibrancy of sweet, lemon candy. Still, the birds are not without darkness. From a distance the evening grosbeak’s wings resemble black mountain ranges capped in snow.
Considered an “irruptive” species, the evening grosbeak does not call before it arrives. During some winter migrations, this hefty songbird travels farther south than other years, making its appearance at platform feeders a welcome surprise for backyard birders. It loves sunflower seeds, a favorite winter morsel, and uses its bulky beaks to break open even the toughest of shells. It is for this reason that you can often find evening grosbeaks surrounded by a band of groupies composed of pine siskins and redpolls who anxiously wait on the sidelines to eat the grosbeak’s fallen scraps. This winter in particular produced a lack of food sources for these robust birds, causing them to travel farther and farther south in search of food. Their longer journey is our gain, however, as a handful of lucky birders near the Great Lakes area are enjoying this influx immensely.
The population of evening grosbeaks has been in decline since the 1960’s. Partners in Flight last reported a 92% species drop back in 2016. It seems these small birds are on the cusp of an abyss. It’s been hard to discern why the evening grosbeak’s numbers are in such a sharp decline since the nature of these birds is a fairly secretive one. Guesses as to why the birds are disappearing so rapidly range anywhere from an increase in logging development to disease and reduction of food sources.
The evening grosbeak does not have a trademark song. The male courts the female with a subtle, quiet dance and then they sneak away to nest high in the tops of coniferous trees. Here, the female lays two to five eggs amongst a delicate nest of twigs, pine needles, and grasses. The eggs stand out amongst the brown like polished, angelite stones casually flecked with specks of black paint. When you hear the chirp of this paunchy bird, the singular notes often sound buzzy and blurred. At times it sounds like it’s singing with a stone caught in its throat, as if the grosbeak is trying to speak for itself but cannot get past its first words, a series of starts and stops rattling from within its syrinx. We can interpret this lack of song as an omen, a distinct voice slowly getting silenced under the weight of environmental destruction. Or we can become its voice, stepping in for the missing trills and unwavering warbles to project its story outward, a shock of yellow across an even brighter sun.
Art by L. Hisako Nakashima
Sources
All About Birds: Evening Grosbeak, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
National Audubon Society, Guide to North American Birds: Evening Grosbeak by Ken Kaufman
National Audubon Society, “How the Evening Grosbeak Got Its Misleading Name” by Kenn Kaufman
Partners in Flight, Species Conservation Profiles: Evening Grosbeak
Miyako Pleines is a Chicago area writer who shares her thoughts on birds and nature in monthly essays for Chicago Audubon.
