Rose-breasted Grosbeak

“The Rose-breasted Grosbeak is the backyard visitor with the beautiful Voice”

This bird is easy to identify because of its colors. It has a rosy breast, and the white bars on its wings are easily seen when it flies. Its big, conical beak is perfect for breaking the hard coverings of seeds. The beauty of its song is also memorable, and it has a contact call that sounds like “chink.” It prefers second-growth forests, which are the forests that return after the old-growth forests are cut down. The bird’s population is declining in some areas, and one reason may be that these second-growth forests are aging.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Amazing facts

• The female looks nothing at all like the male. He looks like a rose-breasted grosbeak, and she looks like a large house sparrow.
• Though the species name means “shy,” rose-breasted grosbeaks won’t hesitate to see off much larger predators that are after their chicks.
• Rose-breasted grosbeaks sometimes hybridize with black-headed grosbeaks.
• They are very long-lived for such small birds. The oldest rose-breasted grosbeak in captivity lived for at least 24 years.

Where To Find Rose-breasted Grosbeak

The rose-breasted grosbeak breeds in North America and winters in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. It can be found in forests, by rivers, in marshes and swamps along the edge of the woods, and especially in second-growth forests. The habitats of its breeding and wintering ranges are similar.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Nests

The nest of the rose-breasted grosbeak is built in trees, sturdy vines such as Virginia creeper or shrubs. It is cup-shaped and made of grass and twigs and lined with finer grass, pine needles, hair, or shredded bark. They are usually from 2.6 to 55 feet from the ground, and sometimes so loosely constructed that the eggs can be seen through the bottom.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Scientific name

The rose-breasted grosbeak’s scientific name is Pheucticus ludovicianus. Pheucticus comes from the old Greek for “shy” or “to flee,” and ludovicianus is New Latin for something from Louisiana. The bird was first described by a specimen that was collected by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in Louisiana. There are no subspecies of the rose-breasted grosbeak.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Appearance

Another name for the bird is cut-throat because the male looks like his throat has been cut, and he’s bled over his breast. Besides this, the grosbeak is between 7 and 9 inches long, has a wingspan of between 11 and 13 inches, and weighs between 1.2 and 2.3 ounces on average. Females may be just slightly smaller than males.

When it comes to coloration, the sexual dimorphism of the rose-breasted grosbeak is dramatic. A male who is ready to breed has a distinctive rose-colored breast patch, black wings, and a black back, head, and tail. His rump and belly are white, and his wings have white patches and rosy linings. Males who aren’t in their breeding plumage are also white below but have white cheeks and a white streak over the top of the head called the supercilium. The feathers on his back and his wings are fringed in brown or white, and the primary flight feathers on his wings are also white.

Female rose-breasted grosbeaks are dark brownish-gray on top, have a white supercilium and buff-colored stripe on the tops of their head, and underparts streaked with black. They have two white patches on the upper wings, and the linings of the wings are yellow. Both males and females have a robust, horn-colored bill and black eyes and feet. Juvenile males look like females.

The rose-breasted grosbeak’s song is known for its sweetness. Juvenile males begin to sing when they’re about a month old. Males begin to sing early in the morning, and females sing while they build their nests. The contact call reminds some people of the call of a woodpecker. Other calls include chucks, squawks, and burrs.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Behavior

Rose-breasted grosbeaks are strong flyers and can be told by their dipping flight pattern as well as their colors, but on the ground, they hop. They are somewhat pugnacious and will chase away other birds, including birds as large as hawks or grackles. Most rose-breasted grosbeaks aren’t fooled when cowbirds lay their eggs in their nest and will kick the foreign egg out. Males are sometimes aggressive toward females until they realize she’s of the same species, and it’s the mating season. The bird moves among the trees and shrubs or searches on the ground to find food. It also grabs insects on the wing or hovers to catch them. It’s also a migratory bird.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Migration Pattern and Timing

The birds breed in the northern part of their range, which would be northern Canada as far west as British Columbia and as far south as northern Georgia. They can leave for their wintering grounds as early as late summer. These wintering grounds include Central America, Cuba, Hispaniola, and the northern reaches of Venezuela and Colombia. Stragglers may not return to the breeding grounds till the middle of May. Birds tend to come back to the same breeding grounds every year. Rarely, a rose-breasted grosbeak is seen in Europe.

Though rose-breasted grosbeaks are territorial when they’re nesting, they sometimes gather in groups to forage in their wintering grounds.

Diet

The bird eats a wide variety of insects and vegetation. When they’re raising chicks, most of their diet will be insects. When they’re migrating and in their winter range they eat fruit. The birds sometimes eat the fruit from around the seeds or use their strong beaks to take off the husks of seeds and only eat the germ. They’ll also eat flowers and buds from trees. In the winter range, they seek out seeds that are rich in oils. They eat mast and a lot of soft fruits including blackberries and raspberries, mulberries, and elderberries as well as the seeds of pigweed, milkweed, and sunflowers. They raid farms for peas, corn, and grains.

Insects that rose-breasted grosbeaks prey upon are different types of beetles, bees, bugs, ants, and caterpillars. They also take snails and spiders.

Foods that should not be given to rose-breasted grosbeaks include chocolate, which is toxic. Bread is useless nutritionally, and moldy bread can make them sick. Table scraps may also be harmful.

Predators and Threats

Predators that eat the birds, their chicks, or their eggs include squirrels, raccoons, grackles, blue jays, owls, and hawks. Other threats include colliding with cars and crashing into windows, being shot, or being caught by dogs or cats. Birds also die of diseases and bad weather, though reports on these causes of grosbeak mortality are scant.

Reproduction, Babies, and Lifespan

The breeding season is in spring when the birds come back from their winter range. Males stake out their territory and start to sing, which attracts the females. He may try to chase her away at first, then he performs a courtship display that includes fluffing up his feathers and a lovely, warbling song. If she accepts, they’ll pick out a place to build their nest,

After the nest is constructed, the female lays one to five eggs. They are blue-green and freckled with brown. Both parents sit on the eggs. They hatch all at once in about 10 days, and the chicks molt when they’re only 9 to 12 days old. They’ll be taken care of by both parents for another three weeks. The chicks will mostly be fed mashed-up insects and will stay with their parents until it’s time to fly south for the winter. The chicks will be able to reproduce themselves when they’re about a year old.

Rose-breasted grosbeaks are long-lived birds, and in the wild they can live to be 13.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Population

The population of the rose-breasted grosbeak is about 4.1 million, and the population appears to be stable with some decline here and there. Their conservation status is least concern.

View all 40 animals that start with R