Grosbeaks

I have known that we have grosbeaks at the cabin, but I have only seen them fleetingly.  They are a rather shy bird that likes sunflower seeds, few of which are found in our area.  Therefore, grosbeak sightings are rare indeed.

Last year we saw several in May so this year I decided to put out some sunflower seeds to see what would happen.  Yowzers!  Not exactly what I expected.  We are the most popular cabin in the forest! We have at times had ten or twelve black-headed or evening grosbeaks, along with a number of wrens, pine siskens, and finches.  Don describes sitting on the porch as a symphony - hummingbirds are the strings, wrens are the flutes, siskens the percussion.  Rather poetic for an engineer, don't you think?

This is one of the many black-headed grosbeaks visiting our feeder.  Beautiful, isn't he?