Yesterday morning at Stoney Point, north of Duluth, Annabelle and I came across many great migrants in this little corner. Most interesting was at least one Red Crossbill type 4 which we captured an audio recording from. Double checked with Matt Young of Cornell who confirmed. The bird did not stay long and continued down the coast after 5 min. This type is usually resident in the pacific NW and seems quite rare in the east. Matt responded that this is the 3rd report he's received of type 4 east of the Rockies in the past 4 days, along with other reports of types 2 and 3 (also western Crossbills) that seem to be moving east currently. I put the recording up on ebird - http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S38614290
Anyone encountering crossbills, especially during potential irruptions, should be encouraged to try to capture some audio recordings to identify type, as their ranges and movement are the subject of many studies and the types may not always be considered the same species as this years crossbill split may signal! For the uninitiated, there are several good resources available for distinguishing Red Crossbill types once an audio recording has been made, see for example - http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/recrtype/ - Justin and Annabelle Watts Hennepin https://www.flickr.com/photos/61259062@N07/ ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
