[cobirds] Yellow Grosbeak

All,

I was one of the lucky multitude seeing the Yellow Grosbeak yesterday morning. The group I was with were noting that the bird had dark streaks in the eyebrow region and on the head, but not in the auricular and cheek region that is shown for the female in the Sibley and National Geographic guides.  The bird was also growing some new feathers in the wing coverts.  This led us to think that it might be a male in its 2nd year that hasn't come into full breeding plumage yet.  On page 467 of the 1st edition of the big Sibley guide, there is a sequence of illustrations for a male Black-headed Grosbeak that shows a first summer bird that doesn't have the full black head and back of the full adult.  In fact, there was a bird exactly like the first summer bird in the yard yesterday,  along with several fully plumaged male Black-headeds.  We thought that, if Yellow Grosbeak follows the same pattern, then the first summer male might look like the bird we were seeing.  It would probably take input from an expert like Steve Howell to be sure of this ID, because I am no expert on this species.

If I had written this email yesterday evening, I would have said that everyone present was behaving well and enjoying seeing such a great bird.  However, I see that there is an ebird report this morning from 7:30am, when everyone had explicitly been asked not to arrive until 8:30.  These homeowners have been more than generous in allowing access to their lovely property for long periods of time. Please do not abuse their hospitality.

Cheers,  Peter Gent.

Boulder, CO.

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