Evening Grosbeak

On Saturday, I hit the road to Santa Fe to try and catch a birdwalk at the Randall Davey Audubon Center. I have been wanting to try birding out of town to see how that might beef up my bird list. I was able to add 9 new birds:

Townsend Solitaire
Hairy Woodpecker
Evening Grosbeak
Clark's Nutcracker
Pine Sisken
Sharp-shinned Hawk
American Goldfinch
Common Raven
Dark Eyed Junco

The Evening Grosbeak was a beauty. I always liked the name - Grosbeak - but had never seen one up close. We descended into a canyon, a former reservoir that was a main water source for the city of Santa Fe decades ago, collected by the Two Mile Dam that is no more.


I learned that most birds don't have pigment in their feathers, but the structure is such that when light reflects, all the colors emerge. The yellow of the male Evening Grosbeak is spectacular, maybe my favorite color of all, along its back and above the eyes like brilliant yellow brows. You just need to look at it from a certain angle and the sun needs to be just so. And hopefully the bird is cooperating unknowingly.

It's simply a matter at being at the right place at the right time. Otherwise, you might mistake the sighting as something ordinary, when in fact you're in the presence of something rather special.