Blue Grosbeaks are medium-sized birds with large bills. Males are blue with two brown wing bars. Females are mostly brown but with some blue coloring on their bodies. They share the same brown wing bars as the male.
Juvenile males are covered in patchy blue-cinnamon feathers with brown wing bars.
- Passerina caerulea
- Length: 5.9-6.3 in (15-16 cm)
- Weight: 0.9-1.1 oz (26-31 g)
- Wingspan: 11.0 in (28 cm)
Range
Blue Grosbeaks breed in southern US states and the Great Plains before migrating to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Habitat And Diet
You can find the Blue Grosbeak in shrubby habitats. It prefers semi-open areas with cultivated lands, overgrown fields, woodland edges, or hedgerows.
A regular diet of insects and seeds sustains the Blue Grosbeak. During the summer, they feast on caterpillars, praying mantises, grasshoppers, and beetles, as well as spiders and snails. They also eat seeds, weeds, and grass too.
Blue Grosbeak Song:
Nests
Nests of Blue Grosbeaks can be found low in the ground, around shrubs and vines. They usually are found up to ten feet above the ground and built from twigs, weeds, leaves, and bark.
The inside is lined with snakeskin, paper, fine grass, and animal hair. They lay up to five eggs that take about ten days to hatch. In another ten days, the young leave the nest.
Fun fact:
The Blue Grosbeak got its name from the French “gros bec,” which literally means “Big Beak”.
