August 27 2019. Hendrie Valley, Burlington, ON. Thank goodness for lessons learned. Today I learned that what I had hitherto believed were the songs of Eastern Bluebirds were more likely to have been the ‘feed-me feed-me’ pleadings of juvenile Rose-breasted Grosbeaks.
I was walking one of our transect routes through a wide and luxuriantly overgrown valley. The birding was okay, (29 species) not more than that, but I was happy enough with a warm, late summer hike, a tree-full of Ospreys, three anyway, and a brief glimpse of a Green Heron. I was noting everything as usual and was struck to hear the two or three-note fluting song of an Eastern Bluebird. It made me stop and pay close attention because I’ve heard them at this place in previous years, although was never able to confirm them with a sighting. It wasn’t long before I could pinpoint the songs as coming from an overgrown Manitoba Maple or maybe Tartarian Honeysuckle. I could just make out movement and before long distinguished two, maybe three, young Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. Here’s one.
Note the remnant of the nestling’s gape, a yellow extension of the bill’s margin, visible just in front of and below the eye, this marks this as a very young fledgling and perhaps still dependant on its parents to bring food, hence the soft pleading song.
That I had confused the calls for the song of a bluebird was nothing if not instructive and a welcome reminder that there is no end to the learning in this birding game.