Today at Grandview Cemetery (Fort Collins, west terminus of Mountain Avenue) the White-winged Crossbill pair made additional progress on their nest. I don't think the actual nest is, or ever will be, visible, but I believe pretty strongly it is about 40 feet up (maybe a tad higher) on the southeast side of a Colorado Blue Spruce in the extreme southeast corner. Finally, I was able to get a poor but confirming photo of her with nest material in her beak (a dead twig of an American Hackberry). The activity was frantic and diverse from 9am to 2:30pm today and included: open cone feeding high in the spruce crowns at branch ends, closed cone feeding high in the interior of spruce crowns, the male gently shooing off a House Finch on several occasions, an Oregon Junco pushing the male off a cone followed by an aerial-flutter-face-to-face-with-a-half-twist (eat your heart out Shaun White), zooming around thru the various tree crowns with her in the lead, lots of singing by the male, palpable supervision of the female nest-building by the male, the mid-afternoon snowmelt bath down in the ditch (both birds), several minutes of shaking and drying on interior limbs of the nest tree, extended periods of disappearing, nest material gathering in cottonwood and hackberry and probably other places, etc. In short, the whole early-nesting repertoire.
I really do not know what to expect once she presumably lays eggs. Mostly I say this in reference to his activities. He is supposed to visit the nest and feed her regurgitated food every few hours. Whether he will gather this food near the nest and otherwise remain in the area is a question. I would also assume his singing and other vocalizations will greatly diminish. Going by Craig Benkmann's BNA account for duration of the egg and nestling stages, I calculate fledging of potential offspring would be in the April 5-15 period. We shall see if this pair produces viable eggs, and if the Fox Squirrels leave them alone. While watching the nest tree, I noticed Pine Siskins building a nest much lower (only 15 feet above the ground) on the northeast side of the same tree fairly close to a branch end. I believe House Finches also will nest in this tree. Squirrels are everywhere, mostly eating Silver Maple flower buds and licking maple syrup. Juncos, I think primarily Oregons and maybe a few Pink-sides, were singly profusely today. Flickers were drumming, trumpeting, playing hide and seek with eachother on opposite sides of trees, probing for ants in the golf fairways. Two harriers did their looping courtship flight very low over the golf course. The Great Horned Owl female is still incubating since beginning her Big Sit on February 15 (same exact date as the onset of nest occupancy by a female (the same one?) in 2009). Victor Nicholson from Ft. Meyers, FL and Judy Meyer from Westminster also saw the crossbills today. Dave Leatherman Fort Collins -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds". To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en Visit the CFO Website at: www.cfo-link.org
