Bird-Lore, March-April 1916

by Various

When at rest, the bird gave the effect of a huge winter Goldfinch; in flight, its largely white wings strongly suggested a Snow Bunting.

We heard it utter two distinctly different notes; the first a rather loud and insistent monosyllable—perhaps nearer peep than any other—and the second, a peculiar little trilling call, not unlike certain notes of the Semipalmated Sandpiper.

Both as to plumage and notes, this species is very strikingly different from any other Grosbeak, of any age and either sex, in this part of the world. Its whitish beak, the yellowish green tone of its plumage, the absence of streaks, and the presence of such large areas of white in its wings and tail—not to mention the notes described above—all serve easily to distinguish this bird even from the female and young of the Pine Grosbeak, which, of all our species, most nearly resembles it.

Such other observations of this species as are made, this winter, thus far east, we hope to see recorded in Bird-Lore.—E. G. and R. E. ROBBINS, Brookline, Mass.

Evening Grosbeaks at Poughkeepsie

On the afternoon of February 17, 1916, I observed seven Evening Grosbeaks feeding on locust seeds at our farm just outside of Poughkeepsie. They returned on the morning of the 20th, when they were also seen by Mr. Allen Frost, Prof. Saunders and Prof. Ellen Freeman, both of Vassar College, and Miss S. Dean, a student, who confirmed my identification. As I believe this is a record for Dutchess County, it seems worth reporting.—George W. Gray, Greenvale, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

Evening Grosbeaks in Lexington, Mass.

Although Evening Grosbeaks may very probably have visited Lexington during the flights of 1880-1890 and 1910-1911, there was no satisfactory record of the bird for the town until Mr. Francis S. Dane saw a bird near his house on December 31, 1915. This bird proved to be a member of a flock of eleven Grosbeaks, all in the plumage of the female. For a week or ten days this company remained in the vicinity of where the first bird was seen, the number of individuals varying somewhat; the maximum being eleven. Two fruited box elder trees were the attraction to the locality. So regular were their visits to these trees that observers could rely almost with certainty on finding the birds in one or the other of the trees (they were some two hundred yards apart) at eleven o’clock in the morning.

At all times, the Grosbeaks showed the fearlessness of man so characteristic of Pine Grosbeaks and the Crossbills, but their tameness was especially noticeable when the flock was busily feeding. The birds then appeared to disregard the presence of a party of observers; we could approach them closely, and see very satisfactorily their method of extracting the seeds.

The seeds of the box elder grow in pairs on a single stem, each seed having a wing. In the winter, however, the seed in its covering with the attached wing, having broken away from the stem, hangs from it only by a thread. It is an easy matter, therefore, for the Grosbeak to break off a single seed. Having detached it from the stem (to do this the bird merely leans downward and pulls off the husk and its wing), the Grosbeak cuts through the husk as far as the kernel and allows the wing to drop to the ground; this it does with a fluttering motion suggestive of a small moth. The remainder, the whole kernel and perhaps two-thirds of the husk, the Grosbeak mumbles in his bill, and in an incredibly short time discards from the sides of his beak the more or less macerated remains of the husk. Some of these particles fall to the ground, some cling for a time to the beak. The bird swallows the kernel. Upon examining the wings which the birds had clipped off, it was apparent that the birds had bitten directly over the kernel itself at a point rather nearer the wing than the center of the kernel. But, although by this incision the kernel was exposed, it was never severed and allowed to fall with the wing, as would have been the case had the beak been closed and the bite completed. The cutting process was always arrested at the point after the casing had been divided, but before the meat has been severed. All this, although the process involved the nicest precision, was accomplished with great rapidity,—the wing fluttering to the ground within a second or two after the fruit was plucked from the stem.