1-2-3 Medium Bird Jubilee – #29

These three seed-eating birds share a large conical beak for power-crushing those big seeds.

The cardinals are my year-round buddies, but the other two are summer residents just arriving to my backyard!

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

 

Blue Grosbeak

 

Northern Cardinal

Another shot of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak who I spotted at my feeders yesterday, he made my day!

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (male)

Apologies, things have been hectic with personal family problems; I’m going to try to get back to posting and catching up with your posts too, I miss them!

 

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39 thoughts on “1-2-3 Medium Bird Jubilee – #29”

  1. Okay, you and a number of the people on Facebook’s “Birds of Missouri” and a few other Facebook sites are making me a bit jealous. I’ve checked and rechecked to verify that St. Louis is in the breeding range of the rose-breasted grosbeak. With the onset of Spring it seems everyone is seeing them except me. I’ve lived in their breeding range for 54 years and 11 months, but have never seen one. I now have a bird feeder to compliment my very popular birdbath, but still no rose-breasted grosbeak. 🙂 Any ideas on attracting them?

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    • I feel for you, David 🙂 This is the first time I’ve ever had a Rose-breasted Grosbeak at my feeders. I see females in the fall eating my wild berries as they push through on migration. I’ve already researched for myself to see if I could attract him to stay. They love black oil sunflower seeds or safflower seeds in large hopper or platform feeders that accommodate their size. My grosbeak only used my biggest feeder to eat sunflower & safflower, didn’t try the other smaller feeders. He visited for two days but I’ve not seen or heard him today, but it is very windy. We had a big migration push through last night, he may have left? 😦 He was super shy, so I didn’t take any photos yesterday to not scare him further, keep him happy. Not sure if that info helps, you and I both would love this handsome fella and lovely gal to visit us daily!!

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      • Thank you for the info. I’ve a relatively small feeder and use a seed mix. I’ll try switching things up for the next migration window, based on your experience.

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  11. I look forward to the return of the RBG and one has obliged by hanging out near our feeders the past few days. Such handsome birds. I would love to see a blue grosbeak, but I’ve never had the pleasure, alas

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    • Do you know if RBGR’s breed on your property? We’re close to the edge of the bottom of their range for breeding but I would sure love to have this handsome guy at my feeders daily with his gal! My fella was here again yesterday, but no sighting of him today so far.

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      • Yes, they do breed here (I saw 2 males and 1 female today at the feeder). Because we take our feeders down in May (soon 😭), they tend not to stick around, but I do see them occasionally. My sister has bear-proof feeders, and feeds year-round, so she sees them all summer. Love that squeaky-gate call!

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        • Lucky you on three today! You take your feeders down because of bears? Yikes, but I understand! I had something steal one of my feeders last night, my red and white lighthouse, snapped the bungee. 😦 I looked around the yard today, no sign of it.

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          • I suspect raccoon (or if it was here, a bear) Check the woods, you might recover it. We’ve found feeders 100s of yds away. They both can destroy a feeder, but sometimes we’ve been lucky. Now my spouse (god bless him) takes them in at night and puts them up in the morning. Feeders are expensive to replace!

          • I did not think about a raccoon for my feeder thief, and I’ve seen them around. I’ve been imagining a deer with it hanging off one of its antlers.😂

    • Those big ‘ole beaks are power-crushers. I was told a cardinal could practically take your finger tip off with a bite, ouch! Tip: never pick one up without a towel over it, lol. I had a female cardinal hit our porch window this past winter; and I did just that, wrapped her up and put her in a box. Told Jaxon, stay away, she’ll bite! She took an hour to regain herself and WHOA she was then a fighter, ready to go. And off she flew!

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      • I didn’t realize that about cardinals Donna. Well you see them crack peanuts and oilers with that strong beak so no wonder. You need your fingers for photography and blogging! Good for her rallying back!

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  16. Your discussion with Eliza and me laughing, Donna. We had a bear that loved sunflower seeds when we lived in Oregon. One night I heard our patio chairs moving around. I’d dropped some seeds in the patio the day before. I jumped out of bed and checked. Nothing. Then I dashed to the other side of the house to check out the garbage cans. Nothing. I heard a noise out back where I had a large, round, bird feeder. So I scurried out there. The bird feeder was bouncing around like a tether ball. But no bear. Then I saw him, maybe 10 feet away. He was huge. He had turned around and was just staring at me, like he was amazed. Apparently, he had never seen a naked man before…

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