I had a lone Red Crossbill female today at Grandview Cemetery. This, in
itself, is unusual (only recorded 6 times in over 120 visits in 2011, the last
being 27May). After listening to several recordings on the wonderful
xeno-canto site, I believe this bird was a Type 4 ("Douglas-fir"). For what
it's worth, there is a bumper Douglas-fir crop in the lower mountains to the
west of Fort Collins (Rist Canyon, for example) and perhaps elsewhere in CO.
The bird's bill was small and the call very different from our normal Type 2's
("Ponderosa") and 5's ("Lodgepole") - what I would describe as "chit" or
"chip". Sibley describes the Type 4 note as "kwit" and says it is upslurred.
The upslurred part is tough for me to verify in this case, even though I heard
the bird call hundreds of times. I certainly wouldn't say the note I heard was
downslurred. The bird also on two occasions uttered part of what I think was
the song (not the "call", "toop", or "alarm" note). This I would describe as
"squeel.....squeel", with a fair amount of musicality to it). Wish I had a
recording and could run a sonogram for a more definitive analysis. When first
seen, I think the bird was alone, but by the end of the morning had acquired an
entourage of 20 or so siskins. They consistently stayed together, flying from
spruce to spruce, not lingering more than 10 minutes atop any one tree.
For a couple hours at mid-day there was a duck with a tuft (and wings) we tried
for, to no avail. Great find, Steve.
After that, I returned to the cemetery about 3pm and heard, then saw, the
crossbill T-d up in a spruce, briefly. So, it may still be there tomorrow.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
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