Evening Grosbeaks summer in northern mixed and coniferous woods in northern latitudes and western mountains. They winter in open, often urban areas and are rare winter visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area.They feed mainly on seeds of trees such as sugar maples, box elder, pines, and tulip poplars but also eat fruit, buds, nuts and insects.
This has been a banner year for Evening Grosbeaks in the Bay Area as they have flocked to the local Chinese Pistache trees to eat the red berries which they seem to find irresistible. In turn, the birders and bird photographers have flocked to the areas where the grosbeaks have been seen to take advantage of this unusual opportunity to see these handsome birds locally. Since female Pistache trees are biennial bearers, producing every other year, next year may not produce the abundance of berries or grosbeaks that we are presently enjoying.


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