NEW SPECIES, fifth for 2023; Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Pheucticus ludovicianus. Dellinger’s Pond, Quincy, CA. Photographed 29 April 2023. And a couple of others, not new but first-of-season for me.
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks breed in moist deciduous forests, deciduous-coniferous forests, thickets, and semiopen habitats across the northeastern United States, ranging into southeastern and central Canada. They gravitate toward second-growth woods, suburban areas, parks, gardens, and orchards, as well as shrubby forest edges next to streams, ponds, marshes, roads, or pastures. During migration, grosbeaks stop in a wide variety of habitats including primary and secondary forest, wet and dry forest, shrub thickets, pine woods, shrubby dune ridges, scrub, urban areas, and wetlands. They spend the winter in forests and semiopen habitats in Central and South America, often in middle elevations and highlands (up to about 11,000 feet in Colombia). Source: All About Birds, The Cornell LabThis is a Black-headed Grosbeak that was perched right next to the Rose-breasted.Not a new species, but first-of-season Savannah Sparrow, also photographed this day.Black-headed Grosbeak, photographed a few days before at Dellinger’s Pond.
