Subject: Re: Red Crossbills over the shrub-steppe
Date: Jul 25 15:28:30 1996
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at mirrors.ups.edu


"Over" is the key word here; red crossbills seem to have the potential to
be flying over just about anywhere. These nomadic birds move about looking
for cone crops, and probably one of the best ways to monitor these
movements is to report when they turn up in entirely inappropriate
habitats, surely an indication that movement is under way.

This would be a very interesting species to subject to a massive banding
program, to try to learn something about just how far they travel and
whether an individual bird seeks out the same conifer species each time.
They aren't caught much in routine netting operations, I guess, but they're
easy to catch with tapes of vocalizations--even easier with calling decoys.
Color banding would obviously add a lot, but birds would need to be
captured to document the movements most accurately.

This would be a difficult project, as we don't have many observers
scattered through the vast conifer forests that crossbills inhabit. On the
other hand, it's great that this is the case!

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416