Bird Guide

Blue-black Grosbeak vs Ultramarine Grosbeak

Blue-black Grosbeak (Cyanoloxia cyanoides)

Blue-black Grosbeak

Cyanoloxia cyanoides

Small33 gForest

The blue-black grosbeak is sexually dimorphic. Females have dark brown plumage which can have a slight reddish hue. Males are dark blue with lighter blue eyebrows and shoulder patches on their wings. The forehead, the area just above the beak, is also a lighter shade of blue. Voice: Often blue-black grosbeaks will not be seen since they prefer to stay hidden among the vegetation, so most of the time their presence is known only when they vocalize. Their song is composed of about six whistles with decreasing pitch and ends with a "seee seee sewee suwee sweet suuu." There are slight differences in the songs between the three different subspecies.

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sonogram of the Blue-black Grosbeak
Recorded by Niels Krabbe · Call, song · Guayas: 13.5 km N Salanguillo, Ecuador · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Dan Vickers · CC BY 4.0
Ultramarine Grosbeak (Cyanoloxia brissonii)

Ultramarine Grosbeak

Cyanoloxia brissonii

Small28 gForest

These birds are 15 cm long. Adult males exhibit a dark-blue plumage with bright-blue highlights on the head and upper-wings and black on the face, wings and tail. The females and the juveniles are brown. Both sexes show black legs and large, thick bill. The Ultramarine Grosbeak is sedentary, only noted to have short-distance local migrations. Individuals of this species are solitary and often territorial, rarely associating with conspecifics or loosely aggregating in mixed-species flocks.

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sonogram of the Ultramarine Grosbeak
Recorded by Rosa Elena Albornoz · Call · Cecilio Acosta (near Caracas), Guaicaipuro, Miranda, Venezuela · CC0
Photo: Ron Knight from Seaford, East Sussex, United Kingdom · CC BY 2.0

Where you might meet both

Learn this pair in the BeakBrain App

Photo and call practice. Coming soon to iPhone and Android.

Play today's Daily Bird

Photos and recordings are credited to their authors under the licence shown. Full profiles: Blue-black Grosbeak and Ultramarine Grosbeak.