Watching and listening

I heard through the grapevine that Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) had been seen in Bodega on Sunday, so I stopped by to look around today (1 January 2019).  

I got lucky and found a few fairly quickly.  Although they were feeding among dense branches, here are a few photos for the record.  I was also able to record their call notes, so check out the audio files below. 

Occasionally the grosbeaks would fly down to Salmon Creek for water:

 

 This one was tugging on strands of lichen:

 

Close-up of the large bill:

 

And of a male eating a seed (Box Elder?):

 

It was a fairly quiet day, so I managed a couple of quick audio recordings.  The first file documents the typical call notes, while the second file is an interesting variant.  [If you can't see the audio files in your e-mail message, click on the title of this post above to go to the NHBH website.]

The typical call note is sometimes written as peeer or cheer.  [Note that there's also a frog calling (ribbit) in this recording.]

 

Now here's the second call type.  This two-syllable call note was from birds perched and foraging in a tree.  It sounds a bit like chew-ee:

We don't get to see Evening Grosbeaks often in Sonoma County, so watching and listening to these birds was a nice way to start the new year.   I'm looking forward to more natural history adventures in 2020!

P.S.  Tom Hahn has confirmed these as Type 1 Evening Grosbeaks.  These birds are usually in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies, but occasionally move south.  Click here for more info about the different Evening Grosbeak call types.