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Updated: June 18, 2025
All day long, the little beaks of the birds are busy. The dear little rose-breasted gross-beak carefully examines the potato plants, and picks off the beetles, the martins destroy weevil, the quail and grouse family eats the chinch-bug, the woodpeckers dig the worms from the trees, and many other birds eat the flies and gnats and mosquitoes that torment us so.
The song of the rose-breasted grosbeak is celebrated, and I hoped my bird would become acquainted with us, and let out his voice; but I was disappointed in both respects, for he never became familiar in the least, and though not at all afraid he was very shy; and furthermore, upon my bringing into the room two small musical thrushes, the grosbeak feeling, as I said, no need of utterance readily relapsed into silence, and all the winter never sang a note.
Passing down the road at the edge of the woods, we were about to cross a tiny brook, when our eyes fell upon a distinguished personage at his bath. He was a rose-breasted grosbeak, and we instantly stopped to see him.
Other wood dwellers came; a rose-breasted grosbeak, with lovely rosy shield, with much posturing and many sharp "clicks," essayed to find out what manner of irreverent intruder this might be. Later his modest gray-clad spouse joined him. They circled around to view the wonder on all sides. They exchanged dubious-sounding opinions. They were as little "used to seeing a lady" as the oxen.
Fowler, that "the Rose-breasted Grosbeak is found in Essex County, and, though formerly seldom seen, is becoming every year more common. Like the Wood Thrush and Scarlet Tanager, it is retiring in its habits, and is usually found in the most sheltered part of the wood, where, perched about midway on a tree, in fancied concealment, it warbles its soft, clear, and melodious notes."
Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; He is one of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exotic visitants, as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grosbeak, with their distant, high-bred ways.
In the United States, the Mocking-Bird enjoys the greatest reputation; the Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the New York Thrush are also nocturnal songsters.
The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak is seen not infrequently at Concord, though its nest is rarely found; but in Minnesota Thoreau found it more abundant than any other bird, far more so than the Robin.
Then a flock of the little lovebird paroquets came and settled in a tree hard by, piping, whistling, and chattering as they climbed and swung head downwards, or flew here and there; while upon some bushes close at hand sat a pair of the lovely rose-breasted trogons, with their grey reticulated wings and beautiful cinnamon backs.
"I think we are getting way off from Nat's yellow bird," said Dodo; "and now I see lots more of Rap's Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, over on the fence. I want to know what they are doing in the potato field. I hope they don't dig up the little potatoes."
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