Bird Feeders, Bird Baths, Bird Houses and more...

Description: Common in forests and wooded areas in the northeastern United States and Canada The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak breeds from southern Yukon southeastward to northern North Dakota, east to Newfoundland, and south to Nebraska, New Jersey, and to northern Georgia. It spends its winters in a line from southern Mexico to northern South America and throughout the Caribbean. It uses its heavy bill to pick food, such as insects, seeds and fruits, from trees.

Other Names: Potato-Bug Bird

Color: The male Rose-Breasted Grosbeak  sports a rosy-red triangular breast patch with a black head and upperparts, white patches in its wings and on its underparts while the female has scaled brown upper parts, streaked brown under parts, and yellow and brown under its wings. In the winter months the male becomes duller, browner.

Sound: The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak’s song is a slow, rich warble, similar to a Robin but mellower. It has a sharp call that “squeaks” like a tennis shoe on a shiny floor. Listen:                                                                                     

 

Preferred Environment: The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak breeds in deciduous and mixed woodlands (especially at the edges), second-growth woodlands, orchards, suburban parks and gardens. It winters in open tropical forests.

Nesting Habits: The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak's nesting site The male usually selects deciduous trees or tall bushes for its breeding habitat, and his mate accepts the choice. The nest of twigs, bark strips, rootlets, grasses and hair is very flimsily and is built  5 to 20 above the ground, where a horizontal branch or crotch in a sapling forms a safe support for the nest.

Food Preference: Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks feed on safflower, sunflower, niger (thistle), corn and suet at the feeder. Their natural diet consists of insects, seeds, and some fruits. Their insect diet consists of beetles, locusts, cankerworms, tent caterpillars, tussock moths, gypsy moths and other insect pests, thus they can be considered an economically beneficial species.