For the Birds Radio Program: Helen's First Encounter: Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Laura loves hearing about people’s very first encounters with wonderful birds. This one was by her mother-in-law.
Transcript
Every now and then I get a letter or e-mail from a listener with a story about a special bird encounter. Last week I got such a missive from a Port Wing woman named Helen who just happens to be my mother-in-law. She wrote:
My most memorable first time sighting of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak was sometime back in the 70s. Dad and I were fishing at the East Fork of the Iron River, when I heard this beautiful song. I looked with my binoculars and saw this beautiful bird. Immediately I looked it up in my Golden Field Guide, and discovered it was a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.
Helen’s note was a lovely thing to read as most of our colorful birds disappear for the year, and it reminded me of another first encounter with a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, this one by Edward Howe Forbush, author of the important work, the Birds of Massachusetts. Forbush wrote in 1928:
Nearly sixty years ago there stood, some half a mile from my father’s house, near Worcester, Massachusetts, a tract of heavy timber shading a living spring, from which ran a little brook meandering down to the lake two miles away. There one bright June day on the bank of the steam occurred my first meeting with the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. A beautiful male bird sat upon the frail nest, about ten feet from the ground in a tall shrub. When I saw that black bird with a large white bill, I hailed it as a new species, thinking it to be a female, not knowing that the male Grosbeak relieved the female on the nest. Those great woods were cut off long ago, and the spring has disappeared along with the stream that flowed from it, but I still recall the very look of that bird as from the nest he regarded my approach with bright, startled eyes, his head cocked on one side.
Forbush continues:
The Rose-breasted Grosbeak is an admirable bird. It is beautiful, tuneful, and useful, which from a human standpoint is about all that could be desired. The male assumes his full part of the family duties, and is very devoted to his partner, and their young. While the female is incubating he feeds her, and when not incubating himself, stands guard over his mate and home, and cheers her with his wonderfully sweet song.
It’s always lovely to think of spring birds, even as autumn passes its peak. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks won’t be back for almost seven months, but their striking plumage and rich song are the stuff that dreams, and memories, are made of.