The Blue Grosbeak visited with us for a few days and enjoyed the white millet.
Photography by Norma Beaird
The Blue Grosbeak winters in Mexico and Central America and is a common summer breeding resident statewide in Georgia from April to November.
The blue color of their plumage and all blue-colored birds (buntings, jays, bluebirds, etc.) is not produced by a blue feather pigment, but instead by tiny melanin particles in the feathers that reflect only the short blue wavelengths in the visible light spectrum.
Research information from the book, Birds of Georgia
by Parrish, Beaton & Kennedy
Copyright 2015, Curtis and Norma Beaird. All rights reserved.
