Southeast corner of Grandview Cemetery, west end of Mountain Avenue, Fort Collins, Larimer County, CO on 21March2010:
Activity today was similar to yesterday, with the female staying on the nest most of the time and the male coming in to feed her. I tried to get there early this morning to establish when the male first shows up to feed her. Not sure if I succeeded or not: my arrival was 7:15 (15 degrees F) and I first noted him coming into the nest tree at 7:32. There may have been a feeding prior to my arrival, as several bird species were already active when I got there. I stayed until noon and visits by the male to the nest occurred at 7:32, 8:14, 9:06, 10:17, and 11:30. The respective intervals between visits were: 42 minutes, 22 minutes, 71 minutes, and 73 minutes. She was off the nest for a time at 9:25, feeding on open cones at spruce branch ends in Section 9 west of the nest tree. I only saw the male on the ground once (about 8:20am) and never saw the female on the ground today. Apparently they were able to get their water from snow on spruce boughs. With tomorrow's temperature in the mid-60's, tree crown snow will soon disappear and they will be forced back to the ground. This morning's viewers were: Aran Meyer, Susan Culliney, Steve Den, the McIntyres, Dan Fusco, Greg Muench, two folks who left before I could get their names, Bob Brandle, and Fred Hager. Wanting to try and discern the crossbills' pattern late in the day, I went back at 4:15pm. Bill Flowers was already in the southeast corner and had not seen the birds since he got there around 4. I put the scope on the nest and while Bill was observing her at 4:40, she left to feed on open spruce cones in Section 9 to the west. After a few minutes, she went back to the nest. When it's warm and she can leave the nest, apparently the male does not need to feed her as often. Dr. Koehn from Colorado Springs got to see her on the nest. The male crossbill was not observed during my afternoon visit until 6:03, when both birds came out of the nest tree to the spruce trees directly to the south. They spent 3 minutes in these trees, apparently cleaning their bills, before both returned to the nest. He fed her there at 6:06. She stayed on the nest and he came out, chased a siskin briefly, went off to the west, then back into the spruce trees south of the nest, then zoomed off to the south toward the golf course. Scott Dieni and I found him in an isolated spruce well out on the golf course (approximately 110 yards southwest of the nest tree). Here we watched him at 6:18 (49 minutes prior to sunset) settle onto a branch about 2 feet out from the trunk facing east, apparently to roost for the night. If this is truly where he roosts and assuming he sleeps in, the sun should hit him in the face tomorrow morning at 7:12am. This is the first time I've ever discovered the male's roosting site. Interestingly, we could see him bringing up seeds from his crop and chewing them with eyes closed (picture a bored baseball player with a mouth full of sunflower seeds). Benkman's BNA account says crossbills can retain up to 25% of their daily intake of 3000 seeds in their crop for utilization overnight. I think that's what we were witnessing. Very cool. Dave Leatherman Fort Collins Dave -- 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 To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
