When I got back to the cemetery this afternoon, the entire flock of
White-winged Crossbills had gathered in the same spruce tree as the Red
Crossbills were feeding in back on Nov 6. The difference in feeding
behavior between the two species was obvious. As RECRs picked through
the cones in Nov, wings of spruce seeds drifted down like snow, with
very few cones snipped off to the ground. On the other hand, the WWCRs
were in full cone-chopping mode. Instead of falling snow, the rain of
cones out of the tree seemed almost like a hail storm. There wasn't much
seed-wing chaff floating down out of the tree- perhaps the RECR got most
of the seeds already?The WWCRs stripped cones for about 10 minutes while
I watched, and then the flock headed off to the other side of the
cemetery, so I headed back home.
Matthew Kenne
Algona, Iowa
[email protected]
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