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Somewhere, hidden up there in the tree, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak has a lot to say. His song is operatic. I can get only a glimpse of his strawberry-red cravat before he disappears again into the leaves.
The way they sound
A Rose-breasted Grosbeak’s song is full of variety and feeling. Here’s a 28-second sample, recorded on my phone as the bird sang in my tree. Note the dramatic slides in pitch and (near the end) a fast trill.
The male does most of the vocalizing, but both male and female sing. Sometimes either one will sing while sitting on the nest. I thought if I watched where the song was coming from, I could spot the nest. I didn’t find it.
The way they look
The male’s and the female’s colors are so different you might be fooled into thinking these were not the same species.
He has the strawberry cravat against a white breast and a black head. She has a striped breast and bold white stripe over the eye.
But both are the same shape and have the same thick bill — the GROSS beak. (Originally, “gross” meant big. Later it came to mean bulky.)
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks love to crack open sunflower seeds. With bill and tongue they adroitly extract the seed and spit out the shell. They also eat a lot of insects, which they smash in their beaks rather than beating their prey to death against branches the way many other birds do.
The sound of red
This is a bird that is easy to hear but hard to see. If you hear its song, look up in the trees for a spot of red. It could be your lucky day.
"Listen Up, World-of-Humans! To my trill, not to that box in your lv with bleeps of corrupted-images of confused peops, but to ME. I sing the truth to you. Are you listening?
Can’t wait for a visit from one! Saw one at our feeder here last year. Such dramatic plumage - like clerical robes...