Wednesday Wings: Red Crossbills

These are clearly not the best pictures, but crossbills are are such rare visitors to the prairies that I had to put them up anyway. I’ve never had red crossbills in our Calgary yard, and they sure didn’t stay around very long. The yellow female was more adventurous, checking out the sunflower chips while the red male watched from the top of the feeder.

Crossbills are pure forest birds. Their awkward-looking bills are superb adaptations for twisting open the cones of conifer trees to get at the seeds inside. They are members of the Finch family, and I’m expecting a LOT of their relative this winter.

Winter finches – common and hoary redpolls, evening and pine grosbeaks, pine siskins and red and white-winged crossbills – are known as irruptive species, surging southward out of the boreal forest. They are generally on a two year cycle, common one year and almost absent the next. According to the results of the the Canadian Great Backyard Bird Count held in February each year, 2009 was a boom year for winter finches, while 2010 was a quiet year. Stock up on your niger seed for the coming winter in southern Canada!

I’ve already had the biggest flock of pine siskins I’ve ever seen in the yard this fall, along with a few common redpolls. Now the crossbills have made an appearance, so I’ll be scanning my spruce trees for the grosbeaks from now on. And peering closely at the redpolls, looking for the elusive (and HARD to identify), hoary members of the flock.