{"id":35298,"date":"2026-02-16T18:33:04","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=35298"},"modified":"2026-02-16T18:33:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:33:04","slug":"white-winged-crossbill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=35298","title":{"rendered":"White-winged Crossbill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The White-winged Crossbill is a wanderer. It looks for spruce and tamarack cone seeds which it opens with its unusual crisscrossed bill.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a male White-winged Crossbill at Taghum. Photo by Cynthia Fraser.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35299\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/whitewingedcrossbill260125s22ccf.jpg\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One never knows when this irruptive finch will appear. Although, we can make educated guesses about where. If they find a forest of cone-laden mature spruce trees, they may even stay and nest.<\/p>\n<p>If you spot one crossbill, look around for a mate. To the left is a female White-winged Crossbill seen feeding near the male on January 25th at Taghum among a flock of Pine Siskins. They were mostly foraging on the ground. Photo by Cynthia.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-35359\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/260125whitewingedcrossbillsccf-2s.jpg\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"481\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Pine Siskins were seen repeatedly eating plant matter, some of which they pulled from the ice. Photo by Cynthia.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35348\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/260125pinesiskinsccf-s.jpg\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The White-winged Crossbill is a wanderer. It looks for spruce and tamarack cone seeds which it opens with its unusual crisscrossed bill. Here is a male White-winged Crossbill at Taghum. Photo by Cynthia Fraser. One never knows when this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=35298\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"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-35298","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\/35298","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35298"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35371,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35298\/revisions\/35371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}