Every once in a while we get a Black Headed Grossbeak coming through The Azure Gate. However, he seems to be a more frequent visitor to Ash Canyon. The Black Headed Grossbeak is in the same family as the Northern Cardinal and is easy to see some resemblance (although not in colors). The Black Headed Grossbeak is a migratory bird, nesting anywhere from Southwestern British Columbia and throughout the Western US -- including Southern Arizona. The Black-headed Grosbeak prefers to live in deciduous and mixed wooded areas. It likes to be in areas where there are large trees as well as thick bushes, such as patches of broadleaved trees and shrubs within conifer forests, including streamside corridors, river bottoms, lakeshores, wetlands, and suburban areas. It also seems to avoid coniferous vegetation. The Black-headed Grosbeak eats pine and other seeds, berries and insects, spiders and fruit. It is one of the few birds that can safely eat the poisonous monarch butterfly. In their wintering grounds this grosbeak consumes many monarchs and many seeds. It will come to bird feeders for sunflower and other types of seed, and fruit. Here are a couple of Male Black Headed Grossbeak photos:
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