{"id":29005,"date":"2020-06-16T16:07:17","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T23:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29005"},"modified":"2020-06-16T16:07:17","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T23:07:17","slug":"unrelated-cousins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29005","title":{"rendered":"Unrelated cousins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We have grosbeaks: similarly looking, heavy-billed, seed- and insect-eating birds that have been lumped together as a group for over three centuries. They are, what is referred to as a <em>form taxon<\/em>, a group based, not upon their biology, but merely their appearances and behaviours.<\/p>\n<p>In the past week, I have watched two grosbeaks: the Black-headed Grosbeak, which is a cardinal grosbeak, and the Evening Grosbeak, which is a grosbeak finch. These two are only distantly related. When seen in the pictures, they are clearly different, but when spotted in the field, I thought they were the same.<\/p>\n<p>The Black-headed Grosbeak is a seasonal bird that is here in small numbers in the warm months. Its heavy bill is obvious.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29023\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/blackheaddedgrosbeak200616as2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Also relatively uncommon, the Evening Grosbeak might be seen at any time of the year.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-29007\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/eveninggrosbeak200612as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here the Evening Grosbeak poses for a contemplative portrait.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29006\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/eveninggrosbeak200612bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; We have grosbeaks: similarly looking, heavy-billed, seed- and insect-eating birds that have been lumped together as a group for over three centuries. They are, what is referred to as a form taxon, a group based, not upon their biology, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29005\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29005"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29032,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29005\/revisions\/29032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}