White-winged Crossbills, like their cousins Red Crossbills, are nomadic birds, moving to find spruce-cone seeds, their major food source. It’s been a bad seed year north of us in Canada, so White-wings are beginning a modest Minnesota invasion, pushing south of their usual but erratic winter range. The birds have been seen in Faribault, Rice, Douglas and Sherburne counties, as well as St. Louis, Aitkin, and Otter Tail, where they would be more likely. Birders have been heading for Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge for the past several days to look for crossbills in a spruce stand about a mile in on the Blue Hill hiking trail (parking lot on Sherburne County Road 9, west of the refuge headquarters. The birds, in groups of from a handful to as many as 40, move widely through the 40+ acres of spruce. I saw crossbills three times in 90 minutes Saturday (15 Nov) by walking up and down the plowed firebreak along the eastern edge of the stand. Watch for fast-moving birds flying just above the tree tops. You sometimes can hear them chatter as they arrive. Take the Blue Hill trail from the parking lot, and bear left at the first fork. Continue on that trail until you reach the spruce stand. It will be obvious. ALERT: While this portion of the park is closed to deer hunting, surrounding land is open to hunting. Officials recommend you wear a blaze-orange garment of some kind. (The photos were taken at Sherburne NWR.) 

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Bird identification, Bird migration, Go places to go birding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.