northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's a Blue Grosbeak I met last May, and it's yet another bird-that's-blue in my area. The males are nearly as blue as one of their local relatives  [1], the Indigo Bunting . I think you're supposed to distinguish between the 2 species due to: The proportionately large beak of the Blue Grosbeak. The rufus wingbars of the Blue Grosbeak. Seen together (which I've never done) the Blue Grosbeak is bigger. More distantly related to the Blue Grosbeak are the Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the Northern Cardinal; they're all in the cardinal family  (AKA cardinal-grosbeak family [2]). As I mentioned in my Rose-breasted Grosbeak post, the name "grosbeak" comes from the French "gros" meaning large, not the English "gross" meaning repulsive. Blue Grosbeak's breed in our area but they prefer to spend the winter in warmer climes. They're generally considered to be "uncommon but widespread". May 4, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 27856...

I don't run across Rose-breasted Grosbeaks very often, but the bird feeder at NJ Audubon's Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary is a good place to find these birds. You might be saying "that beak is kind of large, but I wouldn't call it gross", and you would be correct. The name comes from the French word "gros", meaning "large". (Google Translate gives "fat" as its first translation, though it also lists "large" as a valid translation.) The grosbeaks are not a natural group since there are many birds with the grosbeak name that aren't particularly closely related to each other, and are much more closely related to birds without the grosbeak name. Most grosbeaks are actually finches or cardinals; they do all tend to be small birds with stout, seed-crushing beaks.  The Rose-breasted Grosbeak's closest relative is the Black-headed Grosbeak , so much so that they can mate and raise hybrid offspring. I'm unlikely to...