The Calls of Young Grosbeaks

The call and response of two birds attracted more of my attention than the babble of nearby Willow Creek. The stream, which had recently started to flow for the first time all summer, was my original destination that August morning in Prescott.

"Ta-wit." "Twit."

They were overhead, soft sounds in the low canopy of woody, leafy trees growing along the damp, grassy trail that was helping to feed remnants of the weekend's rain to the creek. After several minutes of peering into the brush and triangulating the sounds, I frustratingly failed to locate any source for the bird calls.

On my return up the pathway, I still heard the tweets, pinging back and forth like sonar signals from within the foliage. Again I paused, and again, I didn't locate a bird.

Starting my hike back home, I soon saw a blue bird fly between the higher branches of two nearby pine trees. My zoom lens quickly helped me identify the subject as a male blue grosbeak, posing for my first lucky shots of the species this season!

He was making similar calls to the ones I heard from the brush, but louder, more forceful, almost like the tinks of his cousin the northern cardinal. With new determination, I returned to the source of the gentler, whistling tweets which were still sounding.

Apparently attracted to the grosbeak's calls, the two birds were easier to find, both of them higher in their tree, mostly unhidden outside of the protective canopy. As a result, they were easy targets for me to photograph. Unsurprisingly, they were also both blue grosbeaks, juveniles that must have recently fledged their nest.

They were still under the care of the male, their father, a hundred feet away. I didn't see their mother anywhere in the area but there was a good chance she was still tending to her brood also.

Of course it was time for me to cut my visit to the grosbeak nursery short. I had pinpointed the source of my original curiosity, my attention very likely having contributed to the birds' calls of alarm in the first place.