Range. Nests from northern New England to Canada and southward in the Alleghanies to northern Georgia. Winters irregularly southward, rarely as far as Florida and Louisiana.
Washington, irregular W.V., sometimes abundant. Ossining, irregular; noted in almost every month. Cambridge, of common but irregular occurrence at all seasons. N. Ohio, irregular, often common, sometimes breeds. Glen Ellyn, uncommon and irregular, Oct. 20-June 11. SE. Minn., W.V., Oct. 25.
Crossbills and Grosbeaks are among winter's chief attractions. While the latter, as I have said above, will leave their summer homes in coniferous forests to feed in winter on the seeds of deciduous trees, the Crossbills are less adaptable. They are specialists in cone-dissecting. Their singularly shaped bills prevent them from eating many kinds of food available to other birds, but no other birds can compete with them in extracting the seeds from cones. Having had too limited an experience with man to have learned to fear him, they are so surprisingly tame that I have known birds to be plucked from trees as one would pick off the cones on which they were feeding. In March, while the ground is still snow-covered, they lay 3-4 pale greenish, spotted eggs in a well-formed nest, 15-30 feet up in a coniferous tree.
WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL
Loxia leucoptera. [Case 2], Figs. 51, 52
Both sexes have white wing-bars and the male is of a paler, more rosy red than the male of the American Crossbill.
Range. Nests from northern New England to Canada; winters irregularly to southern Illinois and North Carolina.
Washington, casual. Ossining, rare T.V., Oct. 29-Dec. 6, Cambridge, irregular W.V. N. Ohio, rare W.V. Glen Ellyn, rare, fall records only, Nov. SE. Minn., W.V., latest record Mch. 4.
A rarer bird than the American Crossbill which, however, it resembles in habits. Both climb about the branches of cone-bearing trees like little Parrots, while feeding keep up a low conversational chatter, and take wing with a clicking note. They have been found nesting in Nova Scotia as early as February 6.
REDPOLL
Acanthis linaria linaria. [Case 2]. Figs. 47, 48
Any little sparrow-like bird with a red cap is a Redpoll. Adult males have the breast also red. L. 5½.