{"id":25728,"date":"2019-02-20T15:58:58","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T23:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=25728"},"modified":"2019-02-21T02:40:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T10:40:44","slug":"colourful-crossbills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=25728","title":{"rendered":"Colourful crossbills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Red Crossbill is a colourful nomad. Its bill&#8217;s strangely crossed mandibles is an adaptation to enable it to pry seeds from cones.\u00a0However, Red Crossbills seem to assemble in different groups, each apparently associated with, and probably adapted to, a particular conifer species. This specialization leads flocks of Red Crossbills to travel widely in search of their ideal food. They appear for a few days, but soon travel afar.<\/p>\n<p>That crossbills pry seeds from conifer cones is clear, but I have never seen them do it. Rather, I have always seen them alongside and on roads satisfying their passion for salt.<\/p>\n<p>An interesting characteristic of this bird is its range of hues: from red to orange to yellow and beige.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The species is named for the brick red colour sported by some of the males. Although this bird is looking right at us, the crossed mandibles are evident.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25737\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/redcrossbill190218s2DMF.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By way of contrast, this female is beige. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25732\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/redcrossbill190219bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While the species is named for the brick red of some of the males, there are many males that are distinctly orange.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25730\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/redcrossbill190219as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And then there are the first-year males that are a striking yellow.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25734\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/redcrossbill190218as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While the previous Red Crossbills were seen in trees alongside roads, they were merely using them as staging posts to enable them to feast on road salt. This is a female crossbill. Salt is ejected from ice as it freezes and so forms a thin saline solution on the ice surface. Consequently, the crossbill merely has to lick the surface to get the salt.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25736\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/redcrossbill190218cs2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Crossbills were not the only finches seen foraging on road salt. Here are three pine siskins and two goldfinches.\u00a0<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25742\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/goldfinch190220s.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Red Crossbill is a colourful nomad. Its bill&#8217;s strangely crossed mandibles is an adaptation to enable it to pry seeds from cones.\u00a0However, Red Crossbills seem to assemble in different groups, each apparently associated with, and probably adapted to, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=25728\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25728"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25752,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25728\/revisions\/25752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}