Date: 11/25/12 8:21 am
From: Mark Johnson <mj3151...>
Subject: [MDBirding] White-winged Crossbills-Cecil County


Hi all,

This morning I spent a couple hours walking the cart paths around Bittersweet (formerly Brantwood) Golf Course in Elkton, looking for winter finches (thanks to Sean McCandless for the heads up). This was actually the third time in the last couple weeks I looked for crossbills there, without success until this morning. I had been walking around from roughly 7:30 until 9:00, actively searching and was ready to call it quits when I stopped to put my bins on a large raptor (Bald Eagle). As I was looking back down towards the trees I saw several birds come in high to the top of one of the cone-covered Norway Spruces, right next to me. I got the bins up and there were two pairs of white-winged Crossbills at the tip-top of the tree. They scanned the sky for a second or two, then dropped down a couple feet and started picking at cones. They stayed all of about 30 seconds. I glanced down momentarily to change the settings on my camera, and by the time I looked up again, they were gone and I couldn't relocate them. They like to keep moving. I also had nice side-by-side looks at Carolina and Black-capped Chickadees, and there were numerous Red and White-breasted Nuthatches, Juncos, Chipping Sparrows, Sapsuckers, Kinglets, etc., flitting from tree to tree. I'll post a link to some pics of the Crossbills when I get the chance later today.

Have fun out there.

Mark Johnson
Aberdeen, MD

--