Evening Hawfinch

Source: Wikipedia

 

The evening grosbeak (Hesperiphona vespertina, syn: Coccothraustes vespertinus) is an American passerine bird in the finch family.

The 20 cm long Hawfinch is a bird with a strong beak and a short tail. The male is brown on the head, neck and chest, yellow on the abdomen, back, forehead and eye stripe, black on the wings and tail and white on the elytra. The female is grey-brown on the back, light brown on the belly and has gray and white spots on the black wings.

The evening hawfinch breeds in the coniferous forest zone from southern Canada across the western USA to south to Mexico. Some birds overwinter in the central and eastern US.

This bird forages for fruit and seeds high up in trees. Insects supplement the diet during the breeding season. With its powerful beak, the bird can even crack cherry stones. In winter, evening hawfinches form large swarms, which also come to bird feeders in gardens when foraging.

Two to four eggs are incubated for about two weeks in a shell nest made of twigs in the forks of trees. The young birds fledge at two weeks.

The evening hawfinch and the Abeille hawfinch are closely related to the Eurasian hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) and are placed by some authors next to this in the genus Coccothraustes. However, the phylogenetics of these three species have not yet been studied in detail and a direct relationship between the two New World Hesperiphona species and the Eurasian hawfinch has not been proven. Anatomical studies from 1925 suggest a close relationship between Hesperiphona and the juniper hawfinch.