Red Crossbills! Lifer!

 

Some birds just elude me. Red Crossbills in particular. They're really cool birds whose beaks don't meet like normal bird's. The top and bottom parts cross over each other at the tip, which makes their beaks perfect for prying seeds out of evergreen cones. Crossbills are rare in VT, but not that rare. People find them in parking lots. Not me. This winter, I vowed I was going to see one, and I've lost track of how many times Dennis and I have been to the nearby Saxon Hill Recreation Area in Jericho after reading tantalizing eBird reports of them hanging out there in spruce trees. The closest I got was seeing two birds fly overhead that I kinda, maybe, hopefully thought were my targets, but kinda, maybe, hopefully doesn't quite cut it for the life list.

There are actually two kinds of Crossbills around here--Red Crossbills, and White-winged Crossbills. A long time ago, I was riding on the back of the Green Mountain Audubon's gathering tank in the sugar orchard when my father slammed on the brakes of the tractor and shouted, "Crossbills!" He pointed them out, and we watched them for a long time. But he never said which kind they were, so I couldn't count them when I later started my life list. Several years ago, a flock of White-winged Crossbills graced the green on the UVM campus in front of the theater for a few weeks, and I was able to find them.

Then a few weeks ago, an eBird report popped up that a flock of Red Crossbills had been seen near some apartments on the UVM campus. I took this as an omen for success. We had to go to Burlington anyway, so I grabbed my binoculars. Soon we were driving around the apartment complex, but it was a little discouraging, and there were more apartments than spruce trees, and nowhere to park, and Covid cases were on the rise down that way... I gave up, and we pulled back onto the street. And right there on the corner was a clump of spruce trees, and at the tops were bunches of cones, and yes! Six Red Crossbills happily eating seeds with their awesome little beaks. There was no traffic, so Dennis pulled over, and I watched them from the car for ten minutes, socially distanced and everything.

So now I can really, certainly, definitely add Red Crossbills to my life list (number 303!). And how ironic is it that I've found two species for my list in downtown Burlington, and they were both Crossbills? 

The spruces in my photo have the Red Crossbills in them, but they're too small to see. This is a habitat shot, and if you've read The Carver's Daughter, you'll know what that means!