Evening Grosbeak

Hesperiphona vespertina

Cracks sunflower seeds with a beak built for industrial work. Mass-mailing in canary yellow.

Population: ~3.8 million (global, Partners in Flight estimate); eastern North American populations have declined heavily since the 1970s-80s for poorly understood reasons
Habitat: Coniferous and mixed forest (spruce-fir in the north, pine in western mountains) during breeding; deciduous groves, semi-open woodland, box-elder/maple stands, fruiting shrubs, and feeders in winter
Fun fact: Despite its name, the Evening Grosbeak is vocal and active throughout the day — early naturalists mistakenly believed it sang mainly at dusk.
Range: Breeds across boreal Canada and the western mountainous US into Mexico, having expanded east to New England and the Maritimes in the late 1800s-early 1900s; winters irruptively and unpredictably south into the US; rare vagrant to the British Isles
Diet: Seeds (especially box elder, ash, maple, and locust), tree buds, berries, small fruits, maple sap, and weed seeds; readily takes sunflower seeds at feeders; supplements diet with insects (including spruce budworm caterpillars) and mineral-rich grit/gravel in breeding season
Size: 0.19 m
Wingspan: 0.33 m
Lifespan: 16 years

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