Crossbills for Chritmas in Carroll
Stephen G Sanford (tanager@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us)
Thu, 25 Dec 1997 11:58:40 -0500
I, too, finally joined the Md White-winged Crossbill club. I basically
just stood by the roadside 9:30-10:30 AM Christmas morning, at the
power-cut about 1/4 mile west of Liberty Lake on Deer Park Rd, where the
previous sightings were. It's hard to say the number of birds. There
were sometimes flocks of about 20, usually very vocal. At one point we
counted about 65 birds flying over, but many of these were Siskins.
Early it was mainly White-winged Crossbills. Later, it was mainly Red
Crossbills with more and more Siskins joining in.
One of the things that was especially nice is that the birds were often
landing in great view at the tops of bare deciduous trees on the north
side of the road, which meant they were very well lit by the sun.
Dave Mazurkowicz (sic?) was there first from about 8:00 AM and seeing
them since about 8:00 AM for several hours and will probably post more
details later from his office.
Nearby Soldiers Delight does not look too promising. The scrub pines
there are not bursting with cones at all, the way the white pines are
almost everywhere. I made very brief stops in Soldiers Delight, w/o
crossbills.
So, next I'm off to Pine Ridge Golf Course to try to nail crossbills
down in my home-county, Baltimore.
Thanks to all for the previous postings, and Good Luck.
Steve Sanford