Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Some encounters remind us why we bird.
When I think of birdsong, I think of those I learned because they sound similar.
Pine Warbler and Chipping Sparrow. Their trills still bring me joy. Shorter, musical, maybe slow? Pine. Long and machinelike? Chipping.
Robin-like songs. Red-eyed Vireo, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The vireo’s loudmouth proclivities make for easy practice. Scarlet Tanagers, in my experience, are more often heard than seen.
Here’s a recording of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Less quick to use Merlin—trusting myself—I’ll use my phone to simply record Voice Memos of birds. Or I just leave it in the truck. It’s nice to revisit birdsong recordings over evening tea.
The frequency with which I heard the robin-like songs was the deciding factor for the order I learned them. Rose-breasted Grosbeak was last. Some walks a Red-eyed Vireo wouldn’t pipe down. I’d excitedly hear a hoarse, “blindingly gorgeous” Scarlet Tanager. There weren’t Rose-breasted Grosbeak events.
Birding for my Big Year, however, I’ve heard them regularly. Was I writing them off as robins? Many say a Rose-breasted Grosbeak sounds like a robin took singing lessons,
in My Gaia adds: “there is a resemblance, but the pattern is different.”
Early one morning I heard a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Stared at a tree to find it. Birding by ear often reveals the tree, but not the bird’s precise location in it.
Flying to a new perch, it betrayed itself—flew laterally and lower. Perfect for pictures.
Birding By Ear
Birds and birdsong remind us of the world’s wild beauty. Amid urban sprawl or suburban development, birds help us remember we’re part of something larger. More often than seeing a bird, we hear one. Hearing a bird doesn’t require much of you, nor does seeing one.
The bird’s positioning was ideal. Light was not, resulting in more heavily edited photos than I like. Didn’t include any.
Walking from that tree brought me past another where I often hear a grosbeak. One sang. The sun had risen more, I wanted pictures.
Bird photography advice I keep in mind: point your shadow at the bird. Or: point your shadow at the tree from which it’s singing. My shadow was wrong.
I repositioned and looked up. There it was! Gorgeous bird, visibly singing. I took enough pictures, then just watched the sound being made. Some encounters remind us why we bird.
Satisfied, maybe an hour into the outing I stopped birding so fervently. Plants, butterflies, the moon—but I’m always in some way birding. When I see a towhee, I stop. It was still nice to log the day’s best encounter when it’d barely started.
Recommended Reading:
, The Woodlands of Ivor. “Life is long. Life is hard. And life is oh so beautiful.”, because she has to. “If I do manage to start my day with the things that fill my cup, then I feel in a better place to handle or enjoy whatever the day has in store.”, Fearless Green—the mind behind HOME, the directory of nature-inspired Substacks. “Environmentalism as a whole has, I fear, been irretrievably hijacked by voices that seem unable to appeal to our innate human love for this gorgeous planet and our magnificently splendid wild cousins. Instead, the conversation now is almost entirely about ways to handle climate change without changing how we live.”The Sunny Power of St. John’s wort.
, The Nettle Witch, MD. “According to Steven Martyn, in ancient times, St. John’s wort was so valued for healing wounds that the time and location of battles was decided by when and where St. John’s wort would be in bloom.”, One Stone and Foraged and Fermented. “The ‘spir’ in Aspirin comes from meadowsweet’s older binomial name - Spirea ulmaria. This is because meadowsweet was one of the plant materials, willow bark and oil of wintergreen being two others, that salicylic acid was first extracted from. In 1897 Felix Hoffman added an acetyl group to salicylic acid and made Acetylsalicyclic, this was then patented by the Bayer company and sold as Aspirin.”
I like this description too: "Rose-breasted Grosbeak sounds like a robin took singing lessons." They do have a nice cheery song for sure. Been awhile since I've seen one though as they're uncommon in the areas I hike. Hopefully I can catch some images of some in the Autumn on their short migrations south.
Incredible post, James. Kaleidoscopically beautiful, in the way birds and birdsongs are. (And thanks for linking my post.) 💚🍃