For the birds: Black-headed Grosbeaks

Male Black-headed Grosbeak.
Photo by Christine Southwick.

By Christine Southwick

Once you see a male Black-headed Grosbeak, you’ll know its name is fitting. The black head and large seed-cracking conical beak cries out, “Look at me”. This starling-sized songbird with its bright orange-cinnamon body has lemon-yellow on the breast and underside of the spotted-black wings. And if that isn’t enough, it has a faster, mellow robin-like song. Actually, both males and females sing, but different songs. The female is not the looker that the male is, but she is still a distinctive bird to have at your feeder.

Seasonally monogamous, the males help incubate the 2-5 eggs, with the nest being built in trees such as willow, alder, big-leafed maple, or cottonwood. They have been known to even build their nests in dense stands of blackberries. The young usually leave the nest up to two weeks before they can fly—both parents feed their precocious offspring until they can safely fly and feed on their own.

Juvenile Black-headed Grosbeak.
Photo by Christine Southwick.

Migrating from their wintering grounds in Mexico, where they are one of the few birds that can eat the poisonous monarch butterflies, the Black-headed Grosbeaks arrive here in late spring. If they find suitable habitat they may stay and breed here, if not they will continue into British Columbia.

Suitable habitat is dense deciduous areas, with large trees and thick bushes, especially near some sort of water, such as: streamside corridors (called riparian), wetlands, lakeshores, or even a garden creek or pond. They appear to dislike dense coniferous forests, but can be found in patches of broadleafed trees and shrubs within conifer forests.

Black-headed Grosbeaks often sing from prominent perches, and their song is similar enough to the robin’s that you might just ignore them until you here their distinctive “eek” call.

During the summer they eat mainly insects, spiders, and snails, in addition to seeds. In the fall they will gladly eat any berries they find, including the highly invasive ivy and holly berries.

Female Black-headed Grosbeak.
Photo by Christine Southwick.

The female Black-headed Grosbeak is often mistaken for the locally-scarcer Rose-breasted Grosbeak, female. The Black-headed have a dark top bill and the lower bill is pale; the Rose-breasted have pale upper and lower bills. The Black-headed female has lemon-yellow wing-lining.

If you really want Black-headed Grosbeaks in your yard, provide black-oil sunflower seeds, running water, and deciduous trees or bushes. Oh, and you might try putting out a tiny dish of grape jelly near the sunflower seeds.

Christine Southwick is on the Board of the Puget Sound Bird Observatory and is their Winter Urban Color-banding Project Manager. She is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat Steward, having completed their forty hour class. We're happy that she's sharing her expertise with us about the birds in our backyards.