Passerina caerulea
Silhouette: Jonah Duckles · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The blue grosbeak (Passerina caerulea) is a medium-sized North American passerine bird in the cardinal family Cardinalidae. It is mainly migratory, wintering in Central America and breeding in northern Mexico and the southern United States. The male is blue with two brown wing bars. The female is mainly brown with scattered blue feathers on the upperparts and two brown wing bars.
The blue grosbeak was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Loxia caerulea. The specific epithet caerulea is the Latin word for "blue", "azure-blue", "sky-blue" or "dark-blue". Linnaeus based his own description on the "blew gross-beak" described and illustrated by Mark Catesby in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. The book had been published in 1729–1732. Catesby gave the location as Carolina and Linnaeus specified America. The type location is now restricted to South Carolina.
Some taxonomists placed the blue grosbeak in its own monotypic genus Guiraca but in 2001 a molecular phylogenetic study of mitochondrial DNA sequences found that the blue grosbeak, in spite... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Puebla | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 2 | Mexico City | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 3 | Toluca | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 4 | León | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 5 | San Pedro Sula | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 6 | Guadalajara | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 7 | Tegucigalpa | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 8 | Baltimore | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | San José | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 10 | Houston | 🇺🇸 United States |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Zoological Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Xcaret | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 3 | Houston Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Zoológico Los Coyotes | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 5 | La Paz Waterfall Gardens | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 6 | Glen Echo Park Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Blue Grosbeak sighting in Houston on a given day, based on 554 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 134th most-seen of the 302 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April and September
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Blue Grosbeak in Houston on a given day, against under 5% in May–August and October–March, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Blue Grosbeak sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
10th of 33
Of the 33 cities where we can rate Blue Grosbeak sightings, Houston ranks 10th at under 5%. The best odds are in Puebla (México, about 20%), Mexico City (México, about 10%) and Toluca (México, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Blue Grosbeak is recorded against all the birds logged in Houston (554 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
