Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Adult male
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Suborder:	Passeri
Infraorder:	Passerida
Family:	Cardinalidae
Genus:	Pheucticus
Species:	P. ludovicianus
Binomial name
Pheucticus ludovicianus (Linnaeus, 1766)
Range in northern America: Breeding only (yellow), wintering only (blue), on migration only (orange)
Synonyms
Zamelodia ludoviciana

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Pheucticus ludovicianus, is a large seed-eating songbird in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae). It breeds in cool-temperate North America, migrating to tropical America in winter.

Description

Adult female

Immature male

Adult birds are is 18–19 cm (7.1–7.5 in) long and weigh 45–47 g (1.6–1.7 oz) on average. At all ages and in both sexes, the beak is dusky horn-colored, and the feet and eyes are dark.

The adult male in breeding plumage has a black head, wings, back and tail, and a bright rose-red patch on its breast; the wings have two white patches and rose-red linings. Its underside and rump are white. Males in nonbreeding plumage have largely white underparts, supercilium and cheeks. The upperside feathers have brown fringes, most wing feathers white ones, giving a scaly appearance. The bases of the primary remiges are also white.

The adult female has dark grey-brown upperparts – darker on wings and tail –, a white supercilium, a buff stripe along the top of the head, and black-streaked white underparts, which except in the center of the belly have a buff tinge. The wing linings are yellowish, and on the upperwing there are two white patches like in the summer male. Immatures are similar, but with pink wing-linings and less prominent streaks and usually a pinkish-buff hue on the throat and breast. At one year of age—in their first breeding season—males are scaly above like fully adult males in winter plumage, and still retail the immature's browner wings.

The song is a subdued mellow warbling, resembling a more refined version of the American Robin's (Turdus migratorius). Males start singing early, occasionally even when still in winter quarters. The call is a sharp pink or pick.

Range and ecology

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak's breeding habitat is open deciduous woods across most of Canada and the northeastern USA. In particular the northern birds migrate south through the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, to winter from central-southern Mexico through Central America and the Caribbean to Peru and Venezuela. The southern limit of its wintering range is not well known; it was for example only recorded in the Serranía de las Quinchas (Colombia) in the 1990s. In winter, they prefer more open woodland, or similar habitat with a loose growth of trees, such as forest edges, parks, gardens and plantations, ranging from sea level into the hills, e.g. up to 5,000 ft (1,500 m) ASL in Costa Rica.

The first birds leave the breeding grounds as early as August, while the last ones do not return until mid-late May. In general, however, they migrate south in late September or in October, and return in late April or early May. It appears as if they remain on their breeding grounds longer today than they did in the early 20th century, when migrants were more commonly seen in May and August than in April or September. The Rose-breasted Grosbeak occurs as a very rare vagrant in western Europe.

It builds a twig nest in a tree or large shrub. The Rose-breasted Grosbeak forages in shrubs or trees for insects, seeds and berries, also catching insects in flight and occasionally eating nectar. It usually keeps to the treetops, and only rarely can be seen on the ground. During breeding it is fairly territorial; in winter, it roams the lands in groups of about a handful of birds, and sometimes in larger flocks of a dozen or more. In the winter quarters, they can be attracted into parks, gardens, and possibly even to bird feeders by fruit like Trophis racemosa. Other notable winter food includes Jacaranda seeds and the fruits of the introduced Busy Lizzy (Impatiens walleriana).

Fire prevention policies in the late 20th century have allowed forests to spread on the Great Plains in places where they would otherwise eventually burn down, thereby allowing the Rose-breasted Grosbeak to extend its range westwards. Increased hybridization with the Black-headed Grosbeak subspecies P. melanocephalus papago has been recorded as a consequence. Indeed, range expansions seem also to have occurred elsewhere, for example in northern Ohio where it bred rarely if at all in the 1900s, but it by no means an uncommon breeder today. In general, though it requires mature woodland to breed and is occasionally caught as a cage bird, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak is not at all rare, and not considered a threatened species by the IUCN.

References

• BirdLife International (BLI) (2008). Pheucticus ludovicianus. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 6 November 2009.
• Foster, Mercedes S. (2007): The potential of fruiting trees to enhance converted habitats for migrating birds in southern Mexico. Bird Conservation International 17(1): 45–61. doi:10.1017/S0959270906000554

    PDF fulltext

• Henninger, W.F. (1906): A preliminary list of the birds of Seneca County, Ohio. Wilson Bull. 18(2): 47–60. DjVu fulltext PDF fulltext
• Hilty, Steven L. (2003): Birds of Venezuela. Christopher Helm, London. ISBN 0-7136-6418-5
• Laverde-R., Oscar; Stiles, F. Gary & Múnera-R., Claudia (2005): Nuevos registros e inventario de la avifauna de la Serranía de las Quinchas, un área importante para la conservación de las aves (AICA) en Colombia [New records and updated inventory of the avifauna of the Serranía de las Quinchas, an important bird area (IBA) in Colombia]. Caldasia 27(2): 247–265 [Spanish with English abstract]. PDF fulltext
• Ohio Ornithological Society (OOS) (2004): Annotated Ohio state checklist. Version of April 2004. PDF fulltext
• Olson, Storrs L.; James, Helen F. & Meister, Charles A. (1981): Winter field notes and specimen weights of Cayman Island Birds. Bull. B.O.C. 101(3): 339–346. PDF fulltext
• Rhymer, Judith M. & Simberloff, Daniel (1996): Extinction by hybridization and introgression. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 27: 83–109. doi:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.83

    (HTML abstract)

• Stiles, F. Gary & Skutch, Alexander Frank (1989): A guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Comistock, Ithaca. ISBN 0-8014-9600-4

External links

• Rose-breasted Grosbeak Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak South Dakota Birds and Birding
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak USGS Patuxent
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak eNature.com
• Stamps (for Barbuda, Cuba, El Salvador, Grenada, Grenadines of Grenada, United States) with RangeMap
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection