Category Archives: Friday’s Feathered Friends
~Color in Nature…
color in nature
tiny feathery lives
pleasure enters the soul
Even the blackest of color is beautiful as found in the Phainopepla.
Go birding, be observant, and bring pleasure to your soul!
Friday’s Feathered Friends
August 1, 2025
Precious signs of summer, babies.
I wanted to share some photos I took of baby Black-headed Grosbeak’s. I have had adults many times in my yard in Colorado, but never babies. It has been fun watching these babies grow. I first noticed just one male, then both the male and female. Now their babies are very active. Given their current size you would think that the babies would’n flutter their winds for food, but I still see them begging.
The showy male puts in equal time on the domestic front: both sexes sit on the eggs, feed the young, and feistily defend their nesting territory.
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Cool Facts from All About Birds:
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The male Black-headed Grosbeak does not get its adult breeding plumage until it is two years old. First-year males can vary from looking like a female to looking nearly like an adult male. Only yearling males that most closely resemble adult males are able to defend a territory and attempt to breed.
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The Black-headed Grosbeak’s scientific names are both well-suited. Its species name, melanocephalus, means “black-headed.” And its genus name, Pheucticus, refers either to the Greek pheuticus for “shy” or phycticus meaning “painted with cosmetics,” fitting for a showy bird that forages in dense foliage.
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In central Mexico, where monarch butterflies and Black-headed Grosbeaks both spend the winter, the grosbeaks are one of the butterflies’ few predators. Toxins in the monarch make them poisonous to most birds, but Black-headed Grosbeaks and a few others can eat them. They feed on monarchs in roughly 8-day cycles, apparently to give themselves time to eliminate the toxins.
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Both male and female Black-headed Grosbeaks are loud songsters. The female’s song is generally a simplified version of the male song. Occasionally, the female sings a full “male” song, possibly to deceive its mate about the presence of intruders and get him to spend more time at the nest.
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The oldest known Black-headed Grosbeak was a male, at least 11 years, 11 months old, when it was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in Montana.
WOW, I can hardly believe it is already August. The summer is passing fast. Get outside and enjoy the sunny, warm days.
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Happy Birding!
~Friday’s Feathered Friends
~A Sweetheart of a Tiny Bird
The Black-capped Chickadee…
This tiny bird with a huge personality is one of my favorite birds. They express happiness and energy in everything they do. Whether it be sitting still on a tree branch, which isn’t for long, or hanging upside down looking for a snack or pecking on a sunflower seed grasp in its feet. I have several that hang out in my yard, which is filled with pines, oaks and aspens. They seem to manage just fine during these cold, windy and snowy months.
See ya’ll next time….
~Friday’s Feathered Friend
Lincoln’s Sparrow – South Llano River State Park – April 2022
A pretty Lincoln’s Sparrow visiting one of the bird blinds in South Llano River State Park. I think Sparrows are pretty with their many unique and colorful patterns. They can be a challenge to identify, which makes it even more fun.
A few facts taken from the web: The dainty Lincoln’s Sparrow has a talent for concealing itself. It sneaks around the ground amid willow thickets in wet meadows, rarely straying from cover. When it decides to pop up and sing from a willow twig, its sweet, jumbling song is more fitting of a House Wren than a sparrow. Though its song might conceal its sparrowness, its plumage says otherwise. This sparrow looks as if it is wearing a finely tailored suit with a buffy mustachial stripe and delicate streaking down its buffy chest and sides.
Males defend their territories with song and will threaten intruders with buzzing calls and wing-flapping. When the female is ready to mate, she approaches the male and flutters her wings the way a juvenile bird begs for food. They form monogamous pair bonds during the breeding season, but they do not maintain those bonds the rest of the year. Once on the nest the female is especially secretive. When disturbed, she slips quietly off the nest and runs mouselike with head down through the vegetation for several feet before flying up off the ground.
During migration Lincoln’s Sparrows often associate with other sparrows, including White-crowned, Song, and Swamp Sparrows. In the winter they are usually solitary, but sometimes forage with small groups of other sparrows.
Happy Birding!
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