Blue Grosbeak

How to find it

Skip thick, mature forest and look in more open, brushy habitat instead. Roadside brushy fields are a good bet: one resident birder hears and sees them at many such sites, and a pair turned up in weedy lots beside a building site. Fence wires make good perches, and one male called from barbed wire as soon as a group stepped out of the car. Water helps in the dry season, since a Costa Rican naturalist recorded Blue Grosbeaks on camera traps at dry-season puddles in Guanacaste. Two males have also been seen feeding in young Guanacaste trees just off the beach at Playa Guiones on a drizzly morning before 6 am.

How to recognise it

Males are bright violet blue with a black patch in front of the eye. They have two cinnamon to chestnut wingbars, which set them apart from other blue birds.

The bill is two-toned, black above and silvery below. The bird is about 16.5 cm long.

Females are olive brown above, with faint streaking on the back in resident birds. Immatures look like adult females but show a blue tint on the rump and tail, a more rufous front wingbar and a blotchy underside.

Migrant birds constantly flick and partly fan their tails, which can help you spot them in brush.

What it sounds like

Recording: Ken Clark, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The Blue Grosbeak eats seeds and small insects taken from low vegetation or the ground. It also makes short flights after flying insects, and it visits roadsides and stream edges for grit.

Resident birds usually travel in pairs. Migrants are solitary or in small groups, and they keep flicking and partly fanning the tail. Females have been seen gathering nest material in May, June and July.

Where it lives

It uses farmland with scattered trees and hedgerows, second growth, open woodland, deciduous forest edges and dry thorny scrub.

Resident birds are uncommon to fairly common in the dry northwest lowlands. They reach about 1100 m on the foothills of the northern mountain ranges. A resident population lives in the northern Pacific region and the western Central Valley, and one birder found it common in the Central Valley and the northwest.

When to see it

Some northern migrants pass through in fall, mostly along the Caribbean coast, and are rare inland from October to November. A very uncommon winter visitor in the northwest and Caribbean lowlands, winter birds leave in mid April.

Similar birds

The male Indigo Bunting is the main look-alike. It is smaller, with a sparrow-sized bill and no obvious wingbars, while the grosbeak has a big triangular bill. Females and immatures resemble female Indigo Buntings but are much larger. Costa Rican lists call the Indigo Bunting Azulillo Norteño.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans call it Picogrueso Azul, and the AOCR list adds the nickname Alondra, the local name that appears next to it on Costa Rican bird lists.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as both resident and migrant (R,M), and it is described as a common resident with some northern birds wintering here.

Photography tips

Scan fence wires and barbed wire for a singing male, which often perches in the open. Dry-season puddles in Guanacaste are worth watching, as camera traps have recorded the bird there. For migrants, look for the constant tail flicking and partial fanning in brush.