Porch Parrot Profile

Day 42: Depending on which reference you use, you may find this fellow (and a "fellow" he most definitely is) listed as Coccothraustes vespertinus or Hesperiphona vespertinus, commonly called Evening Grosbeak. Let's put science aside for the moment and clarify the taxonomy once and for all. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Porch Parrot.

Porch Parrots came to be called such while my husband and I were on a backpacking trip. As I was cooking dinner, I heard a whoop and call of, "Come here! Come quick!" so I ran to the edge of our campsite to see what was causing the furor. "Look!" Bruce continued, "A whole tree full of parrots!" Indeed, a flock of Evening Grosbeaks had descended upon a conifer and were busily gobbling as many seeds as they could possibly shell.

Friends who have flocks of these beautiful birds visiting their feeders often refer to them as "pigs with wings," an unjust appellation despite their voracious appetites for black-oil sunflower seed. Here, I often go through 500 or more pounds of black-oil seed each year, loving every moment of watching them and listening to their plaintive "Churp?" call. Next to Crows and Ravens, the Porchies are my favorite people, and today they appeared at the feeders, two months earlier than they have ever arrived previously.

You will undoubtedly see many more photos of Porch Parrots here in the days to come!