Day 226: The story began when I lived somewhere else, and it began quite literally with a bang. When Mt. St. Helens blew her lid in 1980, the Evening Grosbeaks were smack in the middle of their migration and were thrown off their flyway by the eruption. They arrived on my porch by the dozen; burned, blinded, injured. I nurtured them as best I could by providing food and habitat, and those which survived led their kinfolk back to my door the following year. They became known as "Porch Parrots" in our household, owing to the heaviness of their beaks and their friendly nature. I inducted a neighbor into helping bear the financial burden of hundreds of pounds of black-oil sunflower seed, and when I moved to my present home, she took over their care and feeding.
I missed them terribly the first few years I was here. I longed to hear that distinctive and somewhat querulous, "Churp?" of their voices, longed to see their bright yellow colors and scowling "eyebrowed" faces. I put out black-oil seed, hoping that one might find the feeders and spread the word among his friends, and was delighted when it finally happened.
Then one year, I noticed an oddly colored bird I was certain was a grosbeak, but it was not one of my Porch Parrot Evening Grosbeaks. I checked my field guides and discovered that another species of Grosbeak (Black-Headed) is common to our area. The two breeds get along fine together, and now each year, I can expect both to arrive in numbers, their gusto for black-oil seed undiminished.
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