“Evening breeze don’t seem to cool my mind, wind don’t seem to do a thing.” – Dan Hicks

For many people, the days of youth have spurred an interest in all kinds of activities associated with the outdoors.

John James Audubon, famous painter of birds, discoverer of more than 20 bird species and namesake of the ornithological and conservation society spoke of an affinity with birds from his earliest days.

He has been quoted saying, “I felt an intimacy with them … bordering on frenzy (that) must accompany my steps through life.”

Roger Tory Peterson, father of the nature field guide series that began with “A Field Guide to the Birds” published first in 1934, had a seminal experience with birds in 1919 when he was 11 years old.

Peterson discovered what he thought was a clump of feathers stuck to the side of a tree. Touching the clump, it burst into the living form of a common flicker – an ant-eating woodpecker native to the eastern United States with gold-colored underwing linings.

The incident critically influenced Peterson’s life as, like Audubon, he became a noted bird artist. He was also a writer and a conservationist.

I remember standing in line at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California waiting to meet Peterson. He was fading by this point, with shocks of white hair cast out of sorts.

Seated behind a table in the middle of the bookstore, Peterson graciously autographed my hardcover copy of his 1934 bird field guide for me.

It was one of those moments that seemed hard to reconcile for me – kind of surreal.

Here, in this aged form, was the man who was the creator of this incredible line of famous nature guides I had loved and enjoyed since I was a kid.

Like I would later do during my adolescence and later with album covers, I had spent a great deal of time in my young days through middle school just sitting, studying and staring at the pages of Peterson’s bird field guide and other volumes by Zim on birds, mammals, insects, fishes, wildflowers and so much more.

Holding the man in a place of reverence for me, I didn’t have much to say to him as I recall beyond “thank you.”

Like Peterson and Audubon, my interest in birds began when I was a young kid.

This was before I knew that what I was doing was called birdwatching, but that’s exactly what it was and still is for me.

My earliest inspirational moment with birds occurred when I was still in elementary school.

My mom called me to the picture window in our kitchen to see a flock of about 40 plump birds making curious whistle-like sounds while perched in the big maple tree that overhung our backyard.

The birds were split in their number, with males bright and strikingly marked with yellowish-gold bodies, brownish heads with a dramatic yellow V-shaped, forehead marking.

There were also big patches of white and dynamic black feathers following the shape of the bird as its form trailed back toward its tail.

As is the case with a lot of bird species – with exceptions for cases like belted kingfishers and phalaropes – the male grosbeaks are colored boldly to help attract mates, while the females are drab in appearance.

Males and females both have thick, white, finch-styled bills made for seed cracking.

The birds landed in the backyard to look for seeds. Startled by something, they flew back up into the tree almost in one coordinated motion. Another moment or two later, they flew off as a group.

That was all it took for me. I had never seen these birds and didn’t know what to call them. It wasn’t long before I was able to find out what they were using resources from our Carnegie Public Library just down the street.

Though there may have been earlier experiences that I can’t recall, this was the moment seeing and hearing these birds that I got hooked on learning about the diversity and wonderment of American birdlife.

I would later discover and see, black-headed, blue and pine grosbeaks.

Later, when I lived at the end of a dirt road in Alger County, local township officials naming the roads to aid 911 emergency dispatchers wanted to know if there were grosbeaks found in the woods where I lived.

Knowing I lived there and my interest in birds, they planned to name the road “Grosbeak Trail,” but wanted to be accurate in their naming effort.

Though I have since moved away, the road still bears the name.

Evening grosbeaks are found year-round throughout the Upper Peninsula and the northern third of the Lower Peninsula. They are very social birds, attracted to sunflower seeds at bird feeders, especially in wintertime.

During winters of low food resources, evening grosbeaks move from boreal forests farther south than normal into the U.S.

Over the past few weeks, I have become disconcerted to learn that evening grosbeaks were being listed as a declining and threatened bird species in Michigan.

Recently, several area birdwatchers have reported their first sightings ever or this winter at their bird feeders. Apparently, this was one of those “irruptive” winters when the birds were shifting their location.

We have been blessed to have them at our backyard bird feeders over the entire winter. I think the largest flock I’ve seen over the past few months numbered about three dozen birds.

According to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, evening grosbeaks are numerous and widespread, but North American Breeding Bird Survey results showed “populations dropped by an estimated 74% between 1966 and 2019.”

“Because of their irruptive nature, it can be difficult for large-scale surveys to make precise estimates, but a 2008 study of Project FeederWatch data found that the grosbeak’s winter range had contracted, and numbers had declined,” the Cornell Lab’s website states.

“Evening grosbeaks were reported at only half the number of sites, and flock sizes were down by 27%, in the early 2000s compared with the late 1980s.”

The name adjective “evening” is used in describing these birds with large or “gross” beaks referring to either the bird’s general western distribution or in reference to its song sung in the evening.

Until the mid-19th century, evening grosbeaks were rare in eastern North America, according to the Cornell Lab.

“…They began expanding eastward, possibly aided by the spread of box elders (which were increasingly being planted in cities), or possibly due to outbreaks of forest insects such as spruce budworm,” the lab’s website said. “By the 1920s, they were regular winter visitors in New England, and their range expansion peaked in the 1970s and 1980s.”

The lab said recent declines are attributed potentially to logging and developments in boreal forests, diseases like West Nile Virus or reduced numbers of spruce budworm and other forest insects, in part because of aerial spraying in the U.S. and Canada.

Climate change predictions indicate balsam firs will recede from New England, leading to a disappearance of evening grosbeaks from that region.

Over any lifetime, a series of changes – big and small – are likely to occur.

However, over my lifetime, even in the face of dramatic comebacks of birds like Kirtland’s warblers, peregrine falcons and trumpeter swans, the direction of bird populations has been decidedly downward.

It seems unbelievable to me that birds like evening grosbeaks – that I have known since the earliest days of my budding bird interests – could one day be gone, but it is undeniably true.

This is something to keep in mind always that the world is constantly changing all around us, even though on a day-to-day basis it might not seem like much is really moving anywhere, when it comes to things like the relative abundance of birds and animals.

That is why there are certain species I intentionally take the time to seek out and find each spring and summer before they leave on their migration routes for the wintertime.

Some of these birds include favorites of mine like black-throated blue warblers, common nighthawks and purple martins.

Its not just birds that are in decline. Little brown bats, once an almost certainty on summer nights, have been deeply affected by white-nose syndrome. Their numbers have recently declined enough to add them to the list of Michigan’s threatened species as well.

I have fond recollections of these bats tapping my fishing lines as they flew up and down the creeks and streams after mosquitoes, while I’d fish for trout with the sun going down toward the witching hour.

In my backyard over the past few summers, I now only count bat sightings in the single digits. It’s a sad circumstance, a heartache for me that doesn’t go away.

It’s another reminder to live in the now, appreciate what is here to enjoy today as tomorrow these things I love and cherish may have flown over the distant horizon never to return – just like Audubon and Peterson.

Birds of a feather gone forever.

Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.