Yellow Grosbeak - Southeast Arizona

The husband-and-wife team of Rose Ann Rowlett and Richard Webster, both professional bird guides for Field Guides, Inc., discovered a female Yellow Grosbeak, Pheucticus chrysopeplus, in extreme Southeast Arizona on 5 May.  The bird was discovered at Slaughter (San Bernardino) Ranch on the Geronimo Trail, 15 miles east of Douglas, Arizona.  Slaughter Ranch (fee) is an historical foundation, open from 10 A.M - 3 P.M., Wednesday-Sunday.  The general area where the bird was found is considered a migrant trap and is described in ABA's A Birder's Guide to Southeastern Arizona by Rick Taylor, on pages 220-221.  The ranch was once owned by Texas John Slaughter, a predecessor to Wyatt Earp, and the person responsible for ridding Tombstone of the bad guys. 

Yellow Grosbeak, ABA Code 4, is a Mexican species, and a casual vagrant to Southeast Arizona, primarily in late spring and early summer.  The call and song of this species is similar to the common western species, Black-headed Grosbeak.  Sightings of this species has increased recently, now with winter records accepted by the New Mexico Bird Records Committee (pers. Comm. William Howe).  In Mexico, Yellow Grosbeak is a resident north to central Sonora and southern Chihuahua, where it is found in deciduous and semideciduous forest and edge, thornscrub and clearings.  There are two groups of "Yellow Grosbeaks". Those in the southern part of its range, mainly in South America, are currently considered a separate species and called Golden-bellied Grosbeak by Clements and by the A.O.U., but called Southern Yellow Grosbeak by Hilty in The Birds of Venezuela and by Ridgely and Greenfield in The Birds of Ecuador.

Bill Maynard
Editor - Winging It