Nostalgia
Evening Grosbeak female
It's been about 50 years since I last saw an Evening Grosbeak. My recollection from when I was a kid was that pretty much every winter we'd have flocks of them in the dozens, feeding on the sunflower seeds we scattered on the ground for them. Knowing what I do now about how scarcely we see these birds in any numbers in southern Ontario these days, I consulted my sister and brother to confirm or deny my recollection, and they corroborated my memories... "there seemed always to be good-sized flocks of evening grosbeaks almost every winter ... seemed to be pretty ordinary then — kind of the winter-time equivalent of robins", and "I remember them coming every winter the same as you do, so much so that I thought they were very common and dull". That's exactly how it seemed to me back at that time. What a difference 50 years makes, and what a thrill it was to have three of them (all females) in my own yard earlier this week!
Nostalgia
Evening Grosbeak female
It's been about 50 years since I last saw an Evening Grosbeak. My recollection from when I was a kid was that pretty much every winter we'd have flocks of them in the dozens, feeding on the sunflower seeds we scattered on the ground for them. Knowing what I do now about how scarcely we see these birds in any numbers in southern Ontario these days, I consulted my sister and brother to confirm or deny my recollection, and they corroborated my memories... "there seemed always to be good-sized flocks of evening grosbeaks almost every winter ... seemed to be pretty ordinary then — kind of the winter-time equivalent of robins", and "I remember them coming every winter the same as you do, so much so that I thought they were very common and dull". That's exactly how it seemed to me back at that time. What a difference 50 years makes, and what a thrill it was to have three of them (all females) in my own yard earlier this week!