A Red Crossbill in Cassia County, Idaho. (Courtesy of Christopher Monahan) By Dan Cristol and Pilot Online UPDATED: August 8, 2022 at 1:00 p.m.

A male red crossbill sits on the ground eating pine seeds at Fairmount Cemetery in Davenport in February. This particular flock was fond of hemlocks cones. (Brandon Caswell/correspondent) In mid ...

The red crossbills, native to Canada and the Rocky Mountains, use their oddly shaped bills — the upper tip crosses over the bottom one, hence the name — to feed on seeds from conifer cones.

Red crossbills of different populations tend to specialize on particular conifer species: on ponderosa pine, or hemlock, or Douglas fir, or lodgepole pine, for example.

The red crossbill is aptly named. The bird is red, from brick to bright, and its bill is crossed. The latter is an adaptation, shared only with its close relative, the white-winged crossbill. Both ...

Lesser goldfinches feast on the seeds of weedy, invasive plants such as thistles and dandelions, which are abundant in the ...

Starting in late summer 2023 red crossbills appeared in southern Maine in large numbers, likely driven by the abundant pine cones.

Reports of a few Cassin’s finches and some red crossbills came next, but numbers of the latter have really exploded, with flocks traveling from one stand of ornamental pines to another. Their ...

Red Crossbills are large finches whose namesake bill is misaligned to allow them to pry apart the very tight scales of conifer cones before removing a seed with their powerful tongues. Conifer ...