FINALLY...The Elusive Red Crossbill
In the birding world, folks talk about their nemesis bird, the one that got away, that elusive, irritating species that everyone else sees but you. Bragging rights and chest pounding are not uncommon.
In the birding world, folks talk about their nemesis bird, the one that got away, that elusive, irritating species that everyone else sees but you. Bragging rights and chest pounding are not uncommon.
So it has been for me, after many many forays to the highlands of our area, my search for the red crossbill has been but a bitter disappointment. Not anymore.
Some background and one good story should precede today's successful discovery. Prior to Glen Eller's moving back to his home turf in Tennessee from Grayson County, he (among others) was a great birding mentor to me. For him as well, the crossbill was for years a nemesis bird. These finches move around a lot, seeking the high pastures of red-spruce and other pine species cones, flying about in small flocks, not staying put in one place for dependable observation. Their presence in our area is exclusive to where an abundance of heavy cone crops occur, mostly in our highlands. They are more of a boreal species, but as we should all know by now, the Blue Ridge is a relict community extension of that ecosystem. Glen and I spent hours searching for this bird, but I never hit pay dirt.
Our son's good friend, Jessica Cheng, painted me a picture of a red crossbill for this year's Christmas.
For inspiration (and with Damien's help), Jess looked up a former blog post describing my quest and gifted me 'my red crossbill'. I am not one big on luck, but somehow Jess's gift encouraged me to not give up.
Yesterday afternoon, Joyce and William Roberts made a spontaneous run to Whitetop, after which they emailed their sighting of crossbills. That was all it took, so I called Allen Boynton, and the two of us headed up this morning to make good on the expectation of my first life bird in over three years. Half way on the service road to Whitetop, we found our first flock of at least five, flying about, but eventually landing in good light on the high tips of red spruce. At the very top of Whitetop, we found another small flock, minimum of three, but much lower down and close enough for Allen to photograph. Here are the results!
Thank you Damien, Jessica, Joyce, William, Glen and Allen. We form our own societies around shared pleasures...even though for some...might seem peculiar.
SJR
Christmas Bird Counts
These annual counts provide a great excuse to get out with friends and freeze. This year was gentler, with much warmer temps and less wind than usual. But the warmer weather seemed to negatively affect the bird numbers and species diversity. I am guessing, but some of my theories are: less need for the birds to form foraging flocks and less elevational migratory movement, both behaviors due to a wider abundance of food and water sources. Regardless, I had a great time on two counts…the New River and the Mount Rogers.
2013 Christmas Bird Counts
These annual counts provide a great excuse to get out with friends and freeze. This year was gentler, with much warmer temps and less wind than usual. But the warmer weather seemed to negatively affect the bird numbers and species diversity. I am guessing, but some of my theories are: less need for the birds to form foraging flocks and less elevational migratory movement, both behaviors due to a wider abundance of food and water sources. Regardless, I had a great time on two counts…the New River and the Mount Rogers. On Saturday the 21st, Jesse Pope and I ran the roads down along the river at Cox’s Chapel Low Water Bridge. This is Jesse’s old stomping grounds, so every bend in the road (of which there were plenty) came with a memory and story shared. We counted 39 species, with high numbers of crows and Canada geese as was expected. Among the ‘good’ finds were several white-crowned sparrows, one chipping sparrow, one yellow-bellied sapsucker, and two bald eagles seen by Aaron Floyd who was fishing inside our circle.
Yesterday, Dec. 28th, Allen Boynton’s Mount Rogers CBC crew met at the Log House in Volney for food, coffee and instructions. Notice it's still dark outside.
Dispersing from there, Rick Cavey, Jim Minick, and I headed north and west, beginning our count along Homestead Road.
Here we found our only winter wren.
In spite of the early morning cold, we dug up several species, including an unidentified buteo.
It was too distant for the kind of look any of us was confident enough to be certain of, but it was exciting to see a raptor so early in the day.
Our largest single species count…estimated at 160…was a flock of horned larks, seen in the same place as last year.
These birds are typically found in corn stubbled fields.
We tried to turn one of the larks into an American pipet, alas, to no avail.
At the Buller Fish Hatchery Jim noticed that one of the new wood duck boxes was ‘plugged up’ by something.
That something turned out to be our best bird of the day, a red-morph screech owl.
While we were sneaking up on the box to photo-document our find a great blue heron rose up from the creek and flew upstream.
Towards the end of our day, at the Fairwood Cemetery, we all heard an odd mixture of high and low screeches, which turned out to be a red-tail being properly harassed by a few crazy crows.
Moments like these are held for a long time, reminding us that stomping around in the outdoors any time of year holds its own rewards.
Scott Jackson-Ricketts
RAPTORS OF HARVEY'S KNOB HAWK WATCH
This project is a partnership with the Community School of Roanoke and Harvey's Knob Hawk Watch. 5th, 6th and 7th graders of the Community School in Roanoke, VA diligently observed and illustrated the raptors at Harvey's Knob Hawk Watch.
This project is a partnership with the Community School of Roanoke and Harvey's Knob Hawk Watch. 5th, 6th and 7th graders of the Community School in Roanoke, VA diligently observed and illustrated the raptors at Harvey's Knob Hawk Watch.