I've been conducting bird surveys in
eastern/western Oregon for 7 years now
and it has become somewhat of a joke that
red crossbills and evening grosbeaks never
land, they're always flying over the survey
points. So last year I was thrilled to finally
find evidence of actual nesting crossbills
near Chemult, Oregon - had a female feeding
cone seeds to a noisy fledgling. This year the
red crossbills have just begun singing in the
past few weeks (again near Chemult) - an
unusual sound when you're used to just
hearing the "jip jip jip" calls - and Bob Altman
found a bird building a nest very high up in a
lodgepole pine this past week.

Kelly A. Bettinger
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
Habitat Management Program
Species-Habitat Project
600 Capitol Way North
Olympia, WA 98501-1091
360-902-2604
bettikab at dfw.wa.gov

>>> <Brdr1 at aol.com> 06/23/97 05:26am
>>>
In a message dated 97-06-20 23:14:28
EDT, you write:

<<
Red Crossbills are not supposed to be
anywhere. By that, I mean that they
are highly nomadic and can turn up
anywhere there are conifers with
seed-bearing cones. Red crossbills are
generally "big-seeded" eaters such as

pines, whereas White-winged generally
specialize on the smaller-seeded
spruces, etc. We have good numbers of
each this year here in c. BC.
>>
Thanks for the info. I have 4 pine trees in my
yard. Of course, that's not
where I saw the crossbills, they were
pigging out in my feeder! :-)

(*v*) Donna Ferrill
Brdr1 at aol.com
Mukilteo/Cle Elum, WA