Evening Grosbeak, finally. This is the bird I've most wanted to see in New Jersey and to get one in my home county is a bonus. With the irruption of birds normally found in the boreal forests of Canada, it is not surprising that Evening Grosbeaks, those big yellow and black finches with the enormous beaks, are also making their way down to New Jersey. Many reports I've seen of them flying over various hawk watches. Great if you're there and you know their call and are satisfied with a glimpse. I've been stocking and restocking our feeders in the hopes that one would alight in our yard. The reason I have to keep restocking is that the Pine Siskins, part of the irruption, have been voraciously eating the sunflower chips, 2 or 3 pounds in a couple of days. Yesterday and today there were over 30 at once on all our feeder stations. They are aggressive and keep away the other birds like the 3 Red-breasted Nuthatches, another irruption migrant, their cousin goldfinches, and even a couple of Purple Finches (females) that have taken up residence in the woods behind the house. But we haven't had a chance to see if they could bully away an Evening Grosbeak.
Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I saw that one had showed up at Wells Mills Park on the feeders. I didn't burst out the door as I should have because I'd just spent the day birding in wet and windy conditions and didn't feel like more of the same. But I decided that the county park in Waretown would be my destination in the morning. I was set to go first thing in the morning, opened the garage door and found a light but persistent rain. Now, standing around a feeder, waiting for a bird to show up is my fourth least favorite birding "activity" (No. 1 least favorite: Pelagics. No. 2 least favorite: Sea watches. No. 3 least favorite: Hawk watches), so standing around in the rain didn't add any appeal to the prospect. I looked at the radar and decided to wait out the rain, but a message from Mike that the bird had reappeared, sent me out the door despite the lingering drizzle.
By the time I got to Wells Mills the rain had mostly stopped. I found Steve leaning against a tree, shaking his head. He'd been there 15 minutes and the bird hadn't shown. A few birders were on the porch out of the rain watching the feeders from there while Steve & I theorized that they were keeping the bird away though it didn't seem to bother any of the other finches, chickadees, nuthatches and so on that that were perching on the feeders. Steve said he'd allocated an hour for the bird and that seemed about right to me. Waiting for a bird to show up is like holding a stock that is going against you--when do you cut your losses? An hour seemed like a good stop-loss to set.
I didn't have to use it, of course, because about 10 minutes later the bird showed up, a big yellow, white and black male with a beak that proves the germanic meaning of "Gros." (The "Evening" in the common name and in both parts of the Latin name Hesperiphona vespertina derives from an old belief that the bird sang in the evening. You'd think a little observation would disprove that notion, but maybe the folks who first discovered the bird had more important things to attend to like food and shelter.)
The bird would sit for a while on the platform feeder then fly off. We knew it was close by and after awhile J., the park worker who'd found the bird yesterday, wandered the area and found the bird sitting up in little stand of cedars and ailanthus. The bird continued to go to the feeder and fly away as more and more birders showed up. I left after about an hour happy to have one on my list. Some birds are just check marks, but this is a great bird, one you can enjoy viewing. I still want one at our feeders. It might cost me 50 pounds of seeds, but it's a price I'm willing to pay.
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