One thing about Evening Grosbeaks that I can add. They are very much associated with population outbreaks of herbivorous caterpillars. When Spruce Budworms are abundant in our mountains, seemingly thousands of Evening Grosbeaks show up and roam around eating them. Perhaps they are more in tune with this species than with others such as Gypsy Moths that are in deciduous forests. I have seen such numbers in the Wenatchee Mountains in summer several times. There are times when I could hear their calls continuously as I drove through the forest. I encountered them in such numbers at Rainy Pass last summer.

They used to come to Seattle in great numbers in the spring and feed on deciduous tree buds, certainly bigleaf maples and perhaps sycamores. That doesn't seem to happen so much now. The species has declined in general.

Dennis


On Apr 11, 2012, at 10:03 AM, Michael Hobbs wrote:

> There?s an Evening Grosbeak calling from a tree in my front yard right now! (It took me way too long to recognize the call).
>
> My somewhat limited records show that most of my King County sightings have been in May and in Sept/Oct., so it?s a little surprising to find them out and about this early in April.
>
> Birds of Washington (Wahl, Tweit, Mlodinow) is not particularly helpful in answering your question, Suzanne. They indicate the species to be resident in the state year round, but they show peak occurrence that matches my data.
>
> Reading the rest of the summary, EVGR is highly unpredictable in their movements, can show up anywhere (except the greater Columbia Basin area, where they are rare to absent), and they drop down out of the high elevations in winter. They can be in huge flocks or small groups. Numbers vary widely and unpredictably.
>
> My guess is that the birds will find suitable places to winter, choosing spots with the best food availability (locations varying year to year according to weather and seed crop). In spring, as the mountains thaw out, there is a flurry of activity as they move from winter locations to summer locations, typically higher up. Thus, there are more widespread sightings in May. In fall, as the mountains begin to get snowed in, the birds again range widely searching for the best places to spend the winter. As they visit everywhere in their search for winter homes, there are more widespread sightings in Sept/Oct. It?s unclear how large an area these exploratory excursions can reach, but I would expect they move about on a regional scale, not limited to short movements within Washington.
>
> == Michael Hobbs
> == Kirkland, WA
> == http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
> == http://www.marymoor.org/BirdBlog.htm
> == birdmarymoor at frontier.com
>
> From: Goodwin
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 8:20 AM
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Subject: [Tweeters] Evening Grosbeaks
>
> Hello Tweeters,
>
> We had 3 evening grosbeaks arrive at our feeder on 4/9/12. This is on Kent East Hill. The earliest sighting before was in May. I assume they are migrating. Does anyone know where they are likely to have migrated from?
>
> Suzanne
>
>
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-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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