Here on central Whidbey island, Red Crossbills are pretty regular but only
come to our feeder sporadically. This morning, along with a small flock of
Red Crossbills we have what I am pretty sure is a juvenile crossbill. It is
heavily streaked, its bill is not crossed yet but upper mandible is much
longer and curves down, it has slight color wash on the rump, and is hanging
out with other crossbills and is the same size as the others. Baby birds
are so funny. This one sits on top of the feeder pole and really checks out
what the adults are doing before it makes its move to get a seed. I read
somewhere a long time ago that a good way to attract crossbills to your yard
is through the use of a water feature or a bird bath. Just throwing that
out there. Anyway it is always fun to see them.



See you at the West 90!
Paula Flores
Sammamish and/or Greenbank, WA
floresnw AT hotmail dot com



Hi all, I work on the shores of Grays Harbor 5 days a week and over the past

several weeks I have had Red Crossbills virtually everywhere. I cover

perhaps 5-10 miles of shoreline a day, from Ocean Shores to Westport, and

lately it rarely goes 45 minutes or an hour before I hear crossbills again

(yes Charlie, I do need to start sorting my crossbills by type. I will try).

This also seemed to be the case as I worked several days this week at

Willapa Bay. Also this past weekend in Okanogan County plenty of flyover

crossbills. I wondered how many of our counties are seeing (hearing) this?



Had a good time in the Okanogan... LONG-EARED & GREAT-GRAY OWLS,

BLACK-BACKED and THREE-TOED WOODPECKERS and many other niceties.



Thanks for any replies,



Keith Brady



Olympia, WA