Hello, tweets.

In response to a recent posting, I'd like to assure all that the Rose-breasted Grosbeak at Vicki Biltz's home is an adult male. I've seen Gregg Thompson's beautiful photos of it. First-year males have brown coverts and primaries, very distinctive. This is a bird presumably still molting out of its basic (winter) plumage. Although there's no way to know for sure, it presumably had wintered somewhere around here, as there are winter records from Washington. Migrants shouldn't show up at this latitude for another month or more, after they had completed their spring molt.
-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net