Bird Biographies :: THE AMERICAN OR RED CROSSBILL Finch Family FringillidAE

THE AMERICAN OR RED CROSSBILL Finch Family FringillidAE

Length: A little over 6 inches; slightly larger than the English sparrow.
General Appearance: A small, plump red bird, with brown wings, brown forked tail, and a bill crossed at the tip.
Male: Head and body a dull red, brownish on the back, and bright red above tail; wings brown, without white bars; tail brown and notched; bill with long strong mandibles that are crossed somewhat like a parrot’s.
Female: Head and body dull olive, with a yellowish wash—brightest on rump; head, back, and under parts mottled with black.
Call-note: A short, clear, metallic whistle.
Song: A gentle warble, varied, and agreeable to hear.
Flight: Undulating.
Habitat: Coniferous forests, preferably.
Range: Northern North America. Breeds from central Alaska, and northern Canada south to the mountains of California, to Colorado, Michigan, and in the Alleghanies of Georgia, occasionally in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia.

Red Crossbills are truly the “Wandering Jews” of the bird-world. They are erratic nomads, living in flocks, and roaming where fancy leads or necessity impels them. They pitch their tents and raise their broods wherever they may happen to be sojourning in late winter or early spring, even though many miles south of their natural breeding places. Dr. Elliot Coues writes: “Their most remarkable habit is that of breeding in the winter, or very early in the spring, when one would think it impossible that their callow young could endure the rigors of the season.” He mentions a nest taken in Maine in February, and another in Vermont so early in March that the ground was covered with snow and the weather was very severe.[15]

CROSSBILL

They make no regular migrations, spring or fall, but like will-o’-the-wisps appear and vanish, affording one of the most delightful surprises to be found in nature. To see one of them, accompanied by his olive-green mate, swinging from a spruce bough against a flaming sunset sky or a snowy landscape, is an event in one’s life.

Crossbills are denizens of coniferous forests. Their twisted or crossed bills are peculiarly adapted to extracting seeds from pine and spruce cones, though they eat berries, fruit, grass seeds, and cankerworms in season. Because of their curiously twisted beaks, these birds have always been regarded with peculiar interest, even with superstition. Longfellow has preserved for us the German legend regarding this bird in his poem:

THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL

On the cross the dying Saviour

Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm,

Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling

In his pierced and bleeding palm.

And by all the world forsaken,

Sees He how with zealous care

At the ruthless nail of iron

A little bird is striving there.

Stained with blood and never tiring

With its beak it doth not cease;

From the cross ’twould free the Saviour,

Its Creator’s Son release.

And the Saviour speaks in mildness:

“Blest be thou of all the good!

Bear, as token of this moment,

Marks of blood and holy rood!”

And that bird is called the crossbill;

Covered all with blood so clear,

In the groves of pine it singeth

Songs, like legends, strange to hear.[16]

Henry W. Longfellow

THE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL

The White-winged Crossbill is similar to the Red Crossbill, but its body is a dull crimson instead of red, and its black wing-feathers are so tipped with white as to form two broad white wing-bars. The female is olive-green, gray underneath, with a yellow rump, dark wings and tail, white wing-bars, and dark streaks on head, breast, and back.

This crossbill breeds in Canada, south to the Adirondacks, White Mountains, and Maine. Its note is a soft cheep; its song a gentle warble. To see a flock of these birds feeding silently in a grove of spruces or hear them singing their low sweet song makes a memory cherished by bird-lovers. They may be seen in winter as far south as North Carolina.

JUNCO

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