The Winter of the Crossbills
Posted on February 3rd, 2009 – 4:10 PMBy Jim Williams
 
White-winged Crossbills, a finch species of northern spruce forests, are being seen in many areas of Minnesota this winter, including the Twin Cities. Crossbills feed on the seeds found in spruce cones. The cone crop in Canada is poor this winter, so the birds have moved south in search of food. They’ve been seen in Minneapolis, Plymouth, Falcon Heights, Mendota Heights, Hastings, and Sherburne County, among other metro locations, and from Ely and Hibbing south to Fillmore and Houston counties. They’re being reported from all over. Any spruce tree with cones is a candidate for crossbills. The birds do indeed have mandibles that cross, allowing them to pry cone sections open so they can extract the seeds. These birds were photographed at the parking lot of the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce in Plymouth. The bird above is a female, Â below a male.
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3 Responses to "The Winter of the Crossbills"
I’ve seen these birds in my evergreen tree recently and wondered what they were.
Hutchinson, MN
We had a whole flock of them in our pine trees Tuesday (February 4) in Robbinsdale, MN. Mostly male, a few females. I was puzzled at first as to what they were, have never seen them before. Beautiful! They were having a heyday with the pinecones…
My husband called me this morning(March 
from his office on Highway 13 in Burnsville and said grab the bird book and look up the birds I describe to you! A whole flock of White Winged Crossbills in the pine trees outside his windows! Cool! Another first for our list!
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