Bird lore - Project Puffin

a huge winter Goldfinch; in flight, its
largely white wings strongly suggested a
Snow Bunting.
We heard it utter two distinctly different
notes; the first a rather loud and insistent
monosyllable— perhaps nearer peep
than any other—and the second, a pecu-
liar little trilling call, not unlike certain
notes of the Semipalmated Sandpiper.
Both as to plumage and notes, this
species is very strikingly different from
any other Grosbeak, of any age and either
sex, in this part of the world. Its whitish
beak, the yellowish green tone of its plum-
age, the absence of streaks, and the pres-
ence of such large areas of white in its
wings and tail—not to mention the notes
described above—all serve easily to dis-
tinguish this bird even from the female
and young of the Pine Grosbeak, which,
of all our species, most nearly resembles it.
Such other observations of this species
as are made, this winter, thus far east, we
hope to see recorded in Bird-Lore.—
E. G. and R. E. Robbins, Brookline, Mass.
Evening Grosbeaks at Poughkeepsie
—
On the afternoon of February 17, 1916,
I observed seven Evening Grosbeaks feed-
ing on locust seeds at our farm just outside
of Poughkeepsie. They returned on
the morning of the 20th, when they were
also seen by Mr. Allen Frost, Prof. Saun-
ders and Prof. Ellen Freeman, both of
Vassar College, and Miss S. Dean, a student,
who confirmed my identification. As
I believe this is a record for Dutchess
County, it seems worth reporting.
George W. Gray, Greenvale, Pough-
keepsie, N. Y.
Evening Grosbeaks in Lexington, Mass.
Although Evening Grosbeaks may
very probably have visited Lexington
during the flights of 1889-1890 and 1910-
191 1, there was no satisfactorj^ record of
the bird for the town until Mr. Francis S.
Dane saw a bird near his house on Decem-
ber 31, 1915. This bird proved to be a
member of a flock of eleven Grosbeaks, all
Notes from Field and Study 107
in the plumage of the female. For a week
or ten days this company remained in
the vicinity of where the first bird was
seen, the number of individuals varying
somewhat; the maximum being eleven.
Two fruited box elder trees were the
attraction to the locality. So regular were
their visits to these trees that observers
could rely almost with certainty on finding
the birds in one or the other of the trees
(they were some two hundred yards apart)
at eleven o'clock in the morning.
At all times, the Grosbeaks showed the
fearlessness of man so characteristic of
Pine Grosbeaks and the Crossbills, but
their tameness was especially noticeable
when the flock was busily feeding. The
birds then appeared to disregard the pres-
ence of a party of observers; we could approach
them closely, and see very satis-
factorily their method of extracting the
seeds.
The seeds of the box elder grow in pairs
on a single stem, each seed having a wing.
In the winter, however, the seed in its
covering with the attached wing, having
broken away from the stem, hangs from it
only by a thread. It is an easy matter,
therefore, for the Grosbeak to break off a
single seed. Having detached it from the
stem (to do this the bird merely leans
downward and pulls off the husk and its
wing), the Grosbeak cuts through the
husk as far as the kernel and allows the
wing to drop to the ground; this it does
with a fluttering motion suggestive of a
small moth. The remainder, the whole
kernel and perhaps two-thirds of the
husk, the Grosbeak mumbles in his bill,
and in an incredibly short time discards
from the sides of his beak the more or less
macerated remains of the husk. Some of
these particles fall to the ground, some
cling for a time to the beak. The bird
swallows the kernel. Upon examining the
wings which the birds had clipped off, it
was apparent that the birds had bitten
directly over the kernel itself at a point
rather nearer the wing than the center of
the kernel. But, although by this incision
the kernel was exposed, it*was never
severed and allowed to fall with the wing,