EASTERN EVENING GROSBEAK 223 



food of migrant wdnter birds, including the evening grosbeak. When 

 evening grosbeaks visited St. John's, Newfoundland, from Nov. 18, 

 1951, to May 3, 1952, LesHe M. Tuck informs me they fed on the 

 seeds of snowberry and beech. 



Mary S. Shaub (1956) has contributed an important paper on the 

 effect of native foods on evening grosbeak incursions: 



The great adaptability of this species within its winter range to extremes of 

 climate and topography is evidenced by its appearance in the Adirondacks, the 

 White Mountains of New Hampshire, and all the way down the Appalachians to 

 Rome, Georgia, as well as at many coastal points from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to 

 Wilmington, North Carolina. It is also most adaptable in its acceptance of a 

 vast array of native and cultivated seeds and fruits. 



In the course of our study of the Evening Grosbeak since 1947, and in con- 

 nection with our publishing of the Evening Grosbeak Surveij News during five 

 winters from 1950 to 1955, we have received a large number of reports dealing 

 with foods eaten by this species. These are summarized in the accompanying 

 list of seeds, fruits, and buds. * * * 



The box elder is without doubt the most acceptable native food, and in many 

 reports the Evening Grosbeaks are noted on these trees and not at feeders, even 

 though sunflower seeds are available there. This pertains especially to southern 

 Ontario. In several New York and New Jersey localities the birds were first 

 noted on box elders and could not be enticed to feeding stations until the maple 

 keys had been devoured. 



Of the numerous fruits taken by the Evening Grosbeaks, they seem to favor 

 the various cherries, apples, crabapples, and sumac to all others. * * * Even where 

 the Evening Grosbeaks have settled down to a routine of daily feeder attendance , 

 now and then for no apparent reason they will fly off to a stand of sumac for a 

 meal, or at least a snack, even before the supply of sunflower seeds has been 

 exhausted. * * * 



This variation in diet of the Evening Grosbeak has been noted over a period 

 of years by Mrs. Gerald Fitzgerald of Amsterdam, New York, where her fine 

 plantings of Washington hawthorn, crabapples, red and black chokecherries and 

 cotoneasters have been attractive to the Evening Grosbeak despite her generous 

 supplying of over 1300 pounds of sunflower seeds in the winter of 1949-1950 and 

 of over 900 pounds during 1954-1955. 



Every spring evening grosbeaks may be observed "budding" in 

 various trees. I have seen them budding in our elms, in the Rouge 

 Hill area west of Pickering, Ontario. On Mar. 11, 1958, a female 

 was budding in a tall elm, high up. My notes read: "She reached 

 first for the end bud of a twig, then bit off each lateral bud. Then 

 to the next twig, taking the end bud fh-st then each lateral bud within 

 reach on that twig. And so to the leading bud of the next twig." 

 The following day I watched two females budding in our lilacs: 

 "Each reached forward and took the nearest bud within easy reach, 

 bit it off, ate it and reached for the next nearest bud. These were 

 not terminal but lateral buds in each case." Mrs. Shaub (1956) 

 hsts numerous different kinds of trees and shrubs in which grosbeaks 

 have been seen budding. 



