This has been an incredible year for Red Crossbills in southern and central Maine with the huge white-pine cone crop. Up through 2022, there were only a couple western Type 2 (Ponderosa Pine) and one Type 4 (Douglas fir) Red Crossbills documented in eBird in Maine. There have been many from late summer 2023 through this winter, particularly Type 2. Our typical Northeastern Type 12 has been plentiful as well.
I've listed several potential good spots to find crossbills this winter and spring below and would like to hear other people's ideas for additional spots. This may be the best winter for finding crossbills in southern and central Maine for a long time. It's a great opportunity to record their flight calls to determine which type they are, and document what they're feeding on. It's a particularly good example of important community science; many more observations are needed to better understand this fascinating species.
From what I've seen so far this winter, crossbills are feeding in areas with lots of mature white pines, pitch pines, and/or red pines. Does anyone know of good mature red pine plantations/forests in southern or central Maine that are publicly accessible? Please respond here or to me directly if you do. I know there's a bunch of Red Pine at Cascade Falls in Saco, Alewife Woods in Kennebunk, and Tenmile Demonstration Forest in Brownfield.
There's only a handful of extensive pitch pine forests in Maine and all of them have been loaded with Red Crossbills this winter, including Kennebunk Plains, Waterboro Barrens, Eastern Slopes Regional Airport (Fryeburg) access road and trails, and Jugtown Forest (Naples, mixed pitch pine and other conifers).
White Pines are so common in southern/central Maine it's hard to narrow down where to look but if anyone has thoughts on publicly accessible areas with a large concentration of mature trees, please respond. Massabesic Experimental Forest in Alfred is one such place and it had a bunch of crossbills in late summer.
Thanks,
Glenn Hodgkins
Hi all,
I'm writing to follow up on my previous requests for observations of eastern red crossbills feeding on conifers.This is an especially interesting year and time of year for crossbill feeding behavior. Since late summer-early fall 2023, lots of type 12, type 2, type 4, and even some type 1 crossbills have been feeding extensively on a massive white pine cone crop in the Northeast. Many birds continue to feed on white pine and some are in the middle of breeding. This is interesting because white pine is generally thought to drop most of its seeds shortly after the cones open in early fall. It will be interesting to see just how long crossbills are able to feed on this incredible cone crop and if/when they switch to feeding on other conifers (and what those other conifers are). I should also note that I have fewer observations from the upper Great Lakes region and the southeast, where crossbills may be doing something completely different.
As a reminder, I'm looking for audio recordings of crossbill calls from the eastern US/Great Lakes with information on the conifers the birds are feeding on. The recordings do not have to be made with any advanced equipment – many phone recordings are sufficient. Pictures of the conifer cones are most helpful. However, if you are comfortable with conifer identification, notes on which conifers crossbills are feeding on are also valuable.Based on contributions from several folks across the eastern US, I've accumulated nearly 800 (!) records of eastern red crossbills and the conifers they're feeding on. If you're interested, I've posted a little blurb on my website (https://ckporter.weebly.com/eastern-red-crossbill-ecology.html) illustrating and describing the preliminary data for type 12, the crossbill I have the most data for and am most interested in for this project.
Although there are some intriguing patterns in the data so far, describing the feeding ecology of type 12 and other eastern call types will require much more data across many seasons and years. So, if you have crossbills in your area, please consider uploading recordings and conifer information to eBird. I've also created an iNaturalist project (link below) where observations can be uploaded. If you don't use eBird or iNaturalist, please feel free to send me any observations directly.
Thanks a ton for considering my request. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. Also, please pass this onto anyone you think might be interested in participating.
Good birding,Dr. Cody Porter
Ames, Iowa
iNaturalist project link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/feeding-ecology-of-eastern-red-crossbills
Project description link: https://ckporter.weebly.com/eastern-red-crossbill-ecology.html
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