Loveland rare crossbills and gulls (Larimer/)

[quet...@comcast.net]

Walt Wehtje and I visited Lake Loveland on Saturday Nov 4. The gull flock loafing opposite the swim beach included 7 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, an adult Mew Gull and an adult Thayer's Iceland Gull (first of season). A finch flew overhead giving a call we didn't recognize. Later we matched the call to that of White-winged Crossbill. On Sunday, Nov 5, we returned to the area looking for crossbills. In the cemetery (just east of the lake, on the east side of US 287), we found a flock of 21 Red Crossbills. I recorded three different call types, including Type 4 (Douglas Fir), Type 5 (Lodgepole Pine), and Type 10 (Sitka Spruce). I am not aware of previous reports of Type 10 in Colorado. Has anyone observed Type 10 here before? Its call note sounds like "whit", similar to some Empidonax flycatchers (like Least or Willow). Also on Sunday, a straggling juvenile or hatch year Franklin's Gull was at Horseshoe Lake, as well as a handful of Bonaparte's Gulls.

Audio for the three red crossbill types has been uploaded to the Macauley Library via eBird, and also uploaded to xeno-canto.org.

Nick Komar

Fort Collins CO

[quet...@comcast.net]

Crossbill correction: Matt Young (a crossbill vocalization guru at Cornell) reviewed my sound files and corrected the type 4 to type 2 and the type 10 to type 4. So all three Red Crossbill types (2,4,5) are expected in Colorado. The Red Crossbill vocalization learning curve is a steep one, but fun!

Nick Komar

Fort Collins

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Sent: Monday, November 6, 2017 1:30:37 AM
Subject: [cobirds] Loveland rare crossbills and gulls (Larimer/)

[snip]...On Sunday, Nov 5, we returned to the area looking for crossbills. In the cemetery (just east of the lake, on the east side of US 287), we found a flock of 21 Red Crossbills. I recorded three different call types, including Type 4 (Douglas Fir), Type 5 (Lodgepole Pine), and Type 10 (Sitka Spruce). I am not aware of previous reports of Type 10 in Colorado....[snip]

[Christian Nunes]

As others have noted on the forum, there's a perceptible Red Crossbill incursion occurring across the region this fall. I'd like to stress the importance of recording crossbill calls. A simple voice memo from a smart phone can be uploaded and analyzed with free software (e.g. Ravenlite) or simply uploaded to eBird where a spectrogram will be produced automatically. If the recording is of high enough quality, the shape of the crossbill's call notes can be seen without any extra manipulation. 

The recent eBird article on crossbill types is by far the most succinct and useful resource yet published on the web. By comparing the shape of the call notes on a spectrogram, the identification of precise types becomes almost easy. 

eBird resource: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/crossbills-of-north-america-species-and-red-crossbill-call-types/

Crossbills of North America: Species and Red Crossbill ... ebird.org As one of the most striking differences in bird occurrence from year-to-year in many northern regions of the world, finch irruptions are often exciting events.

Type 2 (Ponderosa Pine) and Type 5 (Lodgepole Pine) are the common breeding types in CO, and Type 4 (Douglas-fir) are irruptive. Other types wander into the state less frequently, most notably Type 3 (Western Hemlock). Several others are possibilities (maybe Types 7 & 10?), but we'll never document them without good recordings. 

Some recent observations and recordings of Type 4 (Douglas-fir) crossbills from CO:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40332272 (Nick Komar and Walter Wehtje, Lake Loveland)

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40329801 (my yard, Lyons)

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40016606 (Nick Moore, Greeley)

Documentation of Type 3 (Western Hemlock) by Steve Mlodinow at the Eaton Cemetery:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S25815587

Happy listening,

Christian Nunes

Lyons, CO

[Doug Ward]

Christian,

 

Thanks for the link to the crossbill update on eBird; I hadn’t seen this article yet and it is a topic that is of keen interest for me, and you are right, it is a good one.  Like you, I have been into and recording crossbills for years now as they represent the most fascinating “evolution in progress” stories that we are getting to witness at this point in time. 

 

Given the projections in the article of an invasion year in the East and South of North America, I wanted to throw in a brief status report from up here in the Panhandle of North Idaho.  Red Crossbills are generally abundant up here, but have been largely absent for the past eighteen (18) months or so, and I have yet to hear even one since returning from Denver about three weeks ago.  Our cone crops seem to be in decent shape, with ornamental spruces in town at least fairly heavily laden – hoping the White-wingeds make a good showing at some point – so not entirely sure what’s going on.  Anyway where this may come into play for Colorado birders this year is that our regular Red Crossbill types up here, Ponderosa (type 2), Hemlock (type 3), and Douglas-fir (type 4), have gone somewhere, so keep your ears (and recorders) open when encountering a flock.  Nick’s post about a mix of Red Crossbills earlier this week is a good case in point.

 

Good Birding,

Doug

Denver…but Coeur d’Alene, ID at the moment.

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From: Christian Nunes <paja...@hotmail.com>
To: "cob...@googlegroups.com" <cob...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 10:02 PM
Subject: [cobirds] More Red Crossbill Info

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