Quarantined. Locked down. Housebound. Shipwrecked. Whatever it's called, staying home is mankind's only effective weapon in the war against COVID-19. While self-relegated to my deck in chilly Prescott this past weekend, I was able to observe the much less restricted bird life visiting my trees and feeders. For the first time in a couple of years, male black-headed grosbeaks partook in the peanut suet that makes up one course in my front yard's extensive bird food menu.
This migrating grosbeak is a regular summer visitor to Arizona's high mountain forests. But I've also observed individuals in the lower Phoenix desert during their travels north from Mexico. However I mostly see them in Prescott where they often stop at my cabin during the spring migration and then return during their late summer journey south. A couple of pairs have probably chosen my wooded neighborhood to actually nest in as I have noticed a fledgling or two over the years.
In any case, it's females and juveniles - they look similar, both drab in appearance - that usually visit my yard. So I was quite excited the last couple of days when I saw not one but at least four individual males regularly stopping at my suet feeder. The black-headed grosbeak is of course distinctive because of the male's ebony-colored pate. But his bright orange breast and abdomen might be his most famous features.
The birds seemed to be in a group or a flock, as I first observed them at my neighbor's house taking turns visiting her platform feeder. They probably feasted on sunflower seeds as this grosbeak is in the cardinalidae family and, like the more common northern cardinal, easily shells the morsel in its mouth using a dexterous tongue and prominent bill. But on my property it was the suet that interested them, initially eschewing the cornucopia of seeds piled in my own platform seeder.
Like with all handsome birds and especially with ones that visit so close to my front door, I'm fascinated by the clear, close-up pictures I'm able to capture. What struck me most in the photos of these four skamps was the variation in color patterns around their namesake black heads.
Their napes - where the orange color of their breasts reaches to their backsides - show varying patterns and transitions, different from individual to individual. There's never a solid delineation; instead streaks of pumpkin-colored feathers often extend toward the birds' crowns. In fact, from the side, one fellow seemed to be sporting an orange cap.
I guess I can hypothesize that a male black-headed grosbeak individual can be as uniquely identified by his mottled nape and crown feathers as, say, a humpback whale can be by the patterns on its tail's flukes. But who knows, this wolfpack of birds could be young, first time travelers, not fully matured in their most vibrant breeding plumage at the beginning of their first big roadtrip to fatherhood.
They appeared to take turns at both the suet and seed feeders: was there a pecking order in this fraternity? No outsiders allowed, they seemed to say when they chased a brilliant pair of summer tangers from the front yard victuals. But when a lone female black-headed grosbeak appeared later in the weekend, she was unmolested by the boys while she dined. Was she breaking up the party, or was it just getting started?
This migrating grosbeak is a regular summer visitor to Arizona's high mountain forests. But I've also observed individuals in the lower Phoenix desert during their travels north from Mexico. However I mostly see them in Prescott where they often stop at my cabin during the spring migration and then return during their late summer journey south. A couple of pairs have probably chosen my wooded neighborhood to actually nest in as I have noticed a fledgling or two over the years.
In any case, it's females and juveniles - they look similar, both drab in appearance - that usually visit my yard. So I was quite excited the last couple of days when I saw not one but at least four individual males regularly stopping at my suet feeder. The black-headed grosbeak is of course distinctive because of the male's ebony-colored pate. But his bright orange breast and abdomen might be his most famous features.
The birds seemed to be in a group or a flock, as I first observed them at my neighbor's house taking turns visiting her platform feeder. They probably feasted on sunflower seeds as this grosbeak is in the cardinalidae family and, like the more common northern cardinal, easily shells the morsel in its mouth using a dexterous tongue and prominent bill. But on my property it was the suet that interested them, initially eschewing the cornucopia of seeds piled in my own platform seeder.
Like with all handsome birds and especially with ones that visit so close to my front door, I'm fascinated by the clear, close-up pictures I'm able to capture. What struck me most in the photos of these four skamps was the variation in color patterns around their namesake black heads.
Their napes - where the orange color of their breasts reaches to their backsides - show varying patterns and transitions, different from individual to individual. There's never a solid delineation; instead streaks of pumpkin-colored feathers often extend toward the birds' crowns. In fact, from the side, one fellow seemed to be sporting an orange cap.
I guess I can hypothesize that a male black-headed grosbeak individual can be as uniquely identified by his mottled nape and crown feathers as, say, a humpback whale can be by the patterns on its tail's flukes. But who knows, this wolfpack of birds could be young, first time travelers, not fully matured in their most vibrant breeding plumage at the beginning of their first big roadtrip to fatherhood.
They appeared to take turns at both the suet and seed feeders: was there a pecking order in this fraternity? No outsiders allowed, they seemed to say when they chased a brilliant pair of summer tangers from the front yard victuals. But when a lone female black-headed grosbeak appeared later in the weekend, she was unmolested by the boys while she dined. Was she breaking up the party, or was it just getting started?
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| Male black-headed grosbeak, Prescott. |
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| Male black-headed grosbeak at the peanut suet in my Prescott yard. |
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| Male black-headed grosbeak. |
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| Male black-headed Grosbeak at my neighbor's platform see feeder, Prescott. He seems to have an orange skullcap. |
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| Male black-headed grosbeak, Prescott. |
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| Male black-headed grosbeak, Prescott. |
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| Male black-headed grosbeak eating a sunflower seed in my Prescott feeder. |
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| Male black-headed grosbeak showing the nape of his neck. |
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| Female black-headed grosbeak. |
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