Dear Tweeters,
The White-winged Crossbills are still around in Ellensburg. It?s been a few weeks since I definitively tracked them down, but I found them today (3/3) on the Central Washington University Campus in the Japanese Garden. The flock seems to have grown and now consists of about 30 individuals (males and females) with only 1 or 2 Red Crossbills. I?ve made recordings of the flock, but the shear amount of environmental noise on campus might make identification of the few Red Crossbills in the flock nearly impossible. Type-3 has been dominant all Winter and both type-3 and White-winged share a predilection for soft-coned conifers (principally Picea sp.)

Cheers,
Walter Szeliga
Ellensburg, WA