“Now it’s time for the Blue Grosbeak.” This response came as part of an email comment from a Hart Beat reader very shortly after the last column on Indigo Buntings was first posted. I love it when readers suggest topics for these columns, and luckily I have some photos of Blue Grosbeaks (photo 1 and top) to share with you.

Many a novice birder has confused Blue Grosbeaks and Indigo Buntings (photo 2) in the range areas where they overlap. However, while Blue Grosbeaks and Indigo Buntings share a number of features in common such as the bill color and black eye lores, Blue Grosbeaks are larger and bigger billed than Indigo Buntings and, most significantly, have two distinctive brown wing bars that Indigo Buntings do not have.

Also, Blue Grosbeaks have a jet-black tail (photo 3) while Indigo Buntings have a bluish/gray tail. Similarly, while both female Indigos and Grosbeaks are brown, the female Blue Grosbeak (photo 4) has the same two brown wing bars that its male counterpart has, while the smaller female Indigo Bunting (photo 5) has a small cream-colored wing bar above a less distinctive brown wing bar.

Certainly, Blue Grosbeaks will never be mistaken for their Rose-breasted Grosbeak cousins (photo 6, male, photo 7, female). As a matter of fact, male Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are not likely to ever be mistaken for any other species, and females are only likely to be mistaken for female western Grosbeak species that are not in the eastern United States.

While Blue Grosbeaks breed in central and northern Florida generally north of Lake Okeechobee, I have never seen one in St Lucie County. Their range extends throughout much of the southern part of the United States all the way to California. Our Pennsylvania home north of Philadelphia is just about the northern extent of their range although I have never seen one on our farm. However, they do occur regularly about 30 miles south of us closer to Philadelphia and are quite common at some of our favorite birding spots in Delaware where these photos were taken.

Conversely, Indigo Buntings extend their range all the way north to southern Canada, but do not breed as far west as Blue Grosbeaks. They also can be found year round in Florida and are regular visitors to bird feeding stations all winter in St Lucie County. They also breed on our Pennsylvania farm and are regular visitors to our feeding stations all summer long but not in the winter.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks also breed on our Pennsylvania farm and are regular visitors to our feeders often bringing their young to feed with them. Unfortunately, they are strictly migrants through Florida as their breeding range extends south only into the Appalachians and north into southern Canada. They winter in Central America and north western South America.  

One of the dangers of writing this column for 10 years now is the risk that I might unwittingly write about a topic I have covered before and even use photos that I have used before. For this I apologize. In checking I found that I wrote about the color blue in birds back in January 2014, (page 185 of the Hart Beat book on-line) and again in August of 2018, (click for pdf ) where a couple of these same Blue Grosbeak photos previously appeared. But since I forgot all about the previous columns and photos I will assume that you, Dear Readers, have also forgotten about them.

For more information about Blue Grosbeaks, see: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Blue_Grosbeak/id, and abcbirds.org/bird/blue-grosbeak/.

For more information about Indigo Buntings, see last month’s Hart Beat column at: www.stlucieaudubon.org/hart-beat-2022.

For more information about Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, see: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Rose-breasted_Grosbeak/id, and abcbirds.org/bird/blue-grosbeak/.