These posts remind me of when I moved from Boulder up to 8600 ft in North Beaver near Pinecliffe in 1996. While I didn't actually move up until June 1st, the homeowner had me come up to housesit in either late April or early May. They had a big kitchen window planter box that they filled with Black Oil Sunflower and 60-80 Red Crossbills were swarming that box. These were adult birds of both sexes. When I actually moved up, the planter box was gone but I put up a bunch of feeders until a bear showed up a few weeks later. I never again saw the spectacle of sunflower eating crossbills.
Good birding, Chip Clouse Lakewood On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 9:09 AM Dave <[email protected]> wrote: > Richard Trinker just reported to eBird an observation of juvenile red > crossbills at low elevation eating sunflower seed obtained from flowers at > a public garden in Boulder. I had the same exact experience yesterday in > two different yards on the east side of Fort Collins. The individuals I > watched were young enough to have mostly straight beaks. Their > vocalizations were a better way to quickly discern their not being house > finches than their general appearance. Juveniles have also been at > Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins recently. It has been suggested this > might indicate local, urban breeding. However, Richard’s and the Fort > Collins observations suggest to me a widespread Front Range shift of young > birds to low elevation of unknown duration to take advantage of an > abundant, easy to obtain nutrition source. > > The next issue of “Colorado Birds” has a “The Hungry Bird” article on > crossbills foods OTHER THAN conifer seed but I didn’t say much about > sunflower seed and juveniles because the literature doesn’t address it and > I hadn’t personally seen it before yesterday. > > Dave Leatherman > Fort Collins > > Sent from my iPhone > > -- > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Colorado Birds" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en > * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include > bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate > * Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/CFO/Membership/ > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Colorado Birds" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/PH7PR12MB7354DD6DA3FADFAC4D102DFDC1E6A%40PH7PR12MB7354.namprd12.prod.outlook.com > . > -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate * Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/CFO/Membership/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/CAPHVJejGsP%2BKoseXELGwcQ6Ak54n2pHe6RLKZtnKbvrGOzxR9g%40mail.gmail.com.
