Black-headed Grosbeak

All in the same day yellow birds starting appearing in our yard.  We got goldfinches on the finch feeder, and a Black-headed Grosbeak stopped by about a half-hour later on the old regular feeder. 

"Gros," in French, means big.  And look at the size of that beak.  Black-headed Grosbeaks are a little bigger than the sparrows that love my regular feeder (you can see a little female sparrow just behind the feeder), but their beaks are exponentially bigger and heavier.  He could crack walnuts with that thing. 

I read "The Beak of the Finch" by Jonathan Weiner, which is the story of modern research into Darwin's finches in the Galapagos.  It juxtaposes modern research (by one interesting family) with Darwin's original research and writings and really brings evolution to life in a compelling way.  I highly recommend it.  That book helped me understand exactly how the grosbeak's beak got so gros, and the countervailing selective forces that keep other beaks small.  So it was pretty cool to see such a great example in my own backyard.  That Grosbeak is basically an overgrown finch with a big beak.  He can crack open and eat just about any seed I put in the main feeder.  But when it's empty, there will still be a half-full tube of tiny seeds in the finch feeder - and he won't be able to get that big beak of his into the tiny openings to get at any of those little seeds.  Goldfinches are too tiny to crack open the big seeds, so they are limited to the finch feeder.  House Finches straddle both worlds and can eat from both.  Admit it, this is pretty cool, huh?

Black-headed Grosbeak (male) in my backyard at about 6:30 on April 12, 2010, photographed with the Nikon (on-camera flash - which really hurts the quality of the pictures).  Identified in the color-coded Birds of California book.