Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

The evening gros­beak's range spans from south­ern Canada into north­ern Cal­i­for­nia and as far east as New Hamp­shire. Year round they can be found in Canada and the North­ern por­tions of the United States like the Rocky Moun­tains and the Great Lakes. They win­ter through­out the United States ex­cept for Florida. ("Evening Gros­beak", 2016)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Conif­er­ous and de­cid­u­ous forests are the evening gros­beaks pre­ferred habi­tats. Dur­ing mi­gra­tion and win­ter the birds can be found in broad-leafed trees and open en­vi­ron­ments with fruit­ing shrubs. Dur­ing breed­ing sea­son, mixed conif­er­ous forests are where these birds will be found. The pre­ferred trees of evening gros­beaks are spruce and fir. ("Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety", 2016; Kauf­man, 2016)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

• Other Habitat Features
• suburban

• Range elevation

  1.524-3.048 (low) km

  (low) mi

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Evening Gros­beaks are medium-large song­birds with thick yel­low­ish green, con­i­cal bills. They are sex­u­ally di­mor­phic in that males are more col­or­ful than the fe­males. The males have dark brown heads, bright yel­low bel­lies and backs, black wings with white wing-patches, and short black tails. They also have yel­low across their brows like a head­lamp. Fe­males are a duller brown­ish-gray with dark heads. They have black wings with white patches as well as yel­low bel­lies. Fe­males and ju­ve­niles closely re­sem­ble each other. ("Evening Gros­beak", 2016; "Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety", 2016)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes colored or patterned differently
• male more colorful

• Average mass

  54.9 g

  1.93 oz

• Average length

  19.05 cm

  7.50 in

• Average wingspan

  33.02 cm

  13.00 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  0.7294 W cm3.O2/g/hr

Re­pro­duc­tion

Monogamy is the usual mat­ing sys­tem for the evening gros­beak. If the food sources are un­usu­ally plen­ti­ful then polygamy can occur. Mat­ing pairs are nor­mally formed be­fore they ar­rive at the breed­ing grounds. Courtship is quiet and with­out song. The male per­forms a "dance" for the fe­male where he raises his head and tail and droops and vi­brates his wings while he swivels back and forth. An­other courtship rit­ual is the fe­males and males al­ter­nately bow­ing at each other. Males do not de­fend their feed­ing ter­ri­tory dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son due to spec­u­la­tion that food is abun­dant in their local patches. ("Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety", 2016; "Evening Gros­beak", 2015; Kauf­man, 2016)

• Mating System
• monogamous
• polygynous

Fe­males have be­tween zero and five eggs and in­cu­bate them for about twelve to four­teen days. Males feed the fe­males while the fe­males stay on the nest. The nestlings stay in the nest for an­other thir­teen to fif­teen days after hatch­ing. Those birds will re­main near their nests for an­other two to five days and con­tinue to be fed by the par­ents. It is not un­com­mon for a breed­ing pair to have two broods in one breed­ing sea­son. ("Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety", 2016; Kauf­man, 2016)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  The evening grosbeak can have up to 2 brood clutches in a year.

• Breeding season

  Breeding season begins in mid-spring.

• Range eggs per season

  0 to 5

• Average eggs per season

  3

• Average time to hatching

  12-14 days

• Average fledging age

  13-14 days

While the fe­male is on the nest, the male brings her food. Once the eggs are hatched both par­ents par­tic­i­pate in feed­ing the young. After the young birds leave the nest they re­main close by and the par­ents con­tinue to feed them for 2-5 days be­fore they young fledge. ("Evening Gros­beak", 2016; "Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety", 2016)

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Lit­tle is known about the lifes­pan of evening gros­beaks in the wild. They can live up to 16 years. ("Evening Gros­beak", 2016)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  16 (high) years

Be­hav­ior

Dur­ing win­ters evening gros­beak travel in noisy flocks around sub­ur­ban areas look­ing for bird feed­ers and other food sources, but once breed­ing sea­son ar­rives they pair bond and be­come more elu­sive, being as se­cre­tive as pos­si­ble. Dur­ing the win­ter there might be some ter­ri­to­r­ial fight­ing for food sources, but dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son the birds are less an­tag­o­nis­tic. It is thought that when food is abun­dant their is less in­traspe­cific com­pe­ti­tion. Evening gros­beaks are also no­madic in that if food is scarce in one area they will leave and find an­other ter­ri­tory where the re­sources are more abun­dant. ("Evening Gros­beak", 2016; "Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety", 2016; "Evening Gros­beak", 2015)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• motile
• nomadic
• migratory
• solitary
• social

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Calls are usu­ally made while fly­ing in the flock. The call is a sin­gu­lar chirp in order to let oth­ers know where the in­di­vid­ual is in flight. It is very sim­i­lar to that of a house spar­row but the chirp is much louder. Lone in­di­vid­u­als or perch­ing flocks may also send out a sim­i­lar mock­ing chirp so that the fly­ing flock is aware that there are other birds around. The birds have a wide va­ri­ety of calls used less often. ("Cana­dian Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion", 1994; "Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety", 2016)

• Communication Channels
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

The thick con­i­cal bill that the evening gros­beak has is made for open­ing and crush­ing seeds from var­i­ous trees and plants. These birds are mainly grani­vores but are also known to eat an abun­dant amount of spruce bud­worms Cho­ri­s­toneura fu­mifer­ana. When in the breed­ing sea­son, the pri­mary seeds eaten are cones from spruce, fir, and pine trees. Dur­ing the win­ter or non-breed­ing sea­son, the evening gros­beak makes fre­quent vis­its to local bird feed­ers and eat a large amount of sun­flower seeds. ("Cana­dian Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion", 1994)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • insectivore
• herbivore
  • granivore

• Animal Foods
• insects

• Plant Foods
• seeds, grains, and nuts

Pre­da­tion

The evening gros­beak has no known preda­tors.

Ecosys­tem Roles

Evening gros­beaks feed heav­ily on the spruce bud­worm Cho­ri­s­toneura fu­mifer­ana when they can find it. This worm is a par­a­site of many pulp­wood for­est stands and can be detri­men­tal to the trees. The birds are found in large num­bers eat­ing the lar­vae and pupae of the bud­worms. It is spec­u­lated that the par­ents even bring some of the bud­worms back to their nestlings to feed them. ("Cana­dian Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion", 1994)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Evening gros­beaks are known to fre­quent bird feed­ers dur­ing the win­ters and non-breed­ing sea­sons. The ben­e­fits of hav­ing these birds come to a feeder would be aes­thetic for the human owner of the feeder. ("Evening Gros­beak", 2016)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse ef­fects of the evening gros­beak on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

The evening gros­beak is cur­rently listed as least con­cern. The range of the pop­u­la­tion is large and they have plen­ti­ful re­sources. In the last few years the pop­u­la­tion has de­clined but not enough for it to be­come a con­cern (In­ter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture and Nat­ural Re­sources, 2016). ("The ICUN Red List of Threat­ened Species", 2016)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern

• US Migratory Bird Act

  Protected

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Other Com­ments

The evening gros­beak goes under a two dif­fer­ent sci­en­tific names. The more com­mon of the two is Hes­pe­riphona ves­per­tina and the other being Hes­pe­riphona ves­per­tina. ("Human Aging Ge­nomic Re­source", 2016)

Con­trib­u­tors

Holly Wa­ter­son (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin Stevens Point, Christo­pher Yahnke (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Stevens Point, Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

1994. "Cana­dian Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion" (On-line). Ac­cessed Au­gust 13, 2016 at http://​www.​hww.​ca/​en/​wildlife/​birds/​evening-grosbeak.​html?​referrer=https://​www.​google.​com/​.

2016. "Evening Gros­beak" (On-line). Ac­cessed Au­gust 11, 2016 at http://​www.​nhptv.​org/​wild/​eveninggrosbeak.​asp.

Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity. 2015. "Evening Gros­beak" (On-line). All About Birds. Ac­cessed Au­gust 10, 2016 at https://​www.​allaboutbirds.​org/​guide/​Evening_​grosbeak/​lifehistory.

2016. "Human Aging Ge­nomic Re­source" (On-line). AnAge: The An­i­mal Aging and Longevity Data­base. Ac­cessed Au­gust 11, 2016 at http://​genomics.​senescence.​info/​species/​entry.​php?​species=Coccothraustes_​vespertinus.

2016. "Seat­tle Audubon So­ci­ety" (On-line). Ac­cessed Au­gust 10, 2016 at http://​www.​birdweb.​org/​birdweb/​bird/​evening_​grosbeak.

In­ter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture and Nat­ural Re­sources. 2016. "The ICUN Red List of Threat­ened Species" (On-line). Red List. Ac­cessed Au­gust 11, 2016 at http://​www.​iucnredlist.​org/​details/​22720702/​0.

Bekoff, M., A. Scott, D. Con­ner. 1989. Eco­log­i­cal Analy­ses of Nest­ing Suc­cess in Evening Gros­beaks. Oe­colo­gia, Vol. 81, No. 1: 67-74. Ac­cessed Au­gust 11, 2016 at http://​www.​jstor.​org.​ezproxy.​uwsp.​edu/​stable/​4219105?​seq=1#​page_​scan_​tab_​contents.

Kauf­man, K. 2016. "Evening Gros­beak" (On-line). Ac­cessed Au­gust 10, 2016 at http://​www.​audubon.​org/​field-guide/​bird/​evening-grosbeak.