BENDIRES CROSSBILL 513 



LOXIA CURVIROSTRA BENDIREI Ridg^ay 



Bendire's Crossbill 



Habits 



Griscom (1937) describes this crossbill as follows: "Exceedingly 

 close to neogoea [=minor], some individuals quite indistinguishable; 

 both sexes averaging a little larger, longer winged and with a longer 

 biU; the great majority of adult males bright scarlet, rather than 

 dull brick red; both sexes often with a darker and sootier gray, less 

 brownish mantle in fresh plumage; adult females not otherwise sepa- 

 rable in color." 



As is true of other crossbills, this subspecies wanders widely in the 

 nonbreeding season ; it has been recorded over most of western North 

 America but records in the East are unsatisfactory because of the 

 difficulty of distinguishing bendirei from the eastern minor. 



Nesting. — The breeding habits of this crossbill in British Columbia 

 are weU described by J. A, Munro (1919), as observed by him in 

 "a small section of timbered country close to Okanagan Landing, 

 its topography being the familiar Okanagan type of low mountain 

 covered with Douglas fir and yellow pine, including both original 

 forest and second growth. 



a* * * ^ female taken on August 5, and another taken on August 

 18 [1915J, had the worn abdominal patch of breeding birds and a third 

 female in breeding condition, was taken on February 24, 1916." 



Munro watched some crossbills on March 1 that were apparently 

 building a nest on a ridge overlooking Okanagan Lake. He continues: 



On March 19, while hunting on the same ridge, a nest in process of construction 

 was found, about one hundred yards distant, and I concluded that its owners were 

 the same pair as had been under observation some two weeks earlier. The nest 

 was saddled on a thin branch near the top of a forty foot Douglas fir about fourteen 

 inches from the trunk and was so well concealed as to be all but invisible from 

 below. The female was under observation for half an hour, while she carried 

 material to the nest, moulding the interior with her body after each trip, while her 

 mate remained at the top of a nearby tree chirping excitedly. 



Absence from the district prevented my return to the nest until April 9 and it 

 then contained a newly hatched chick, and two eggs on the point of hatching. 

 The ground color of the eggs was pale bluish green lightly flecked with lavender 

 and with a wreath of lavender and ruddy-brown spots around the larger end. 

 No measurements of the eggs were taken and unfortunately I was not successful 

 in preparing them. The nest which is a very handsome one was presented to the 

 Provincial Museum at Victoria. The body of the nest is composed of black tree 

 moss {Alectoria jubata), dry grass and weed stalks; the outside, of fine fir twigs, 

 those selected for the rim being decorated with little tufts of vivid green lichen 

 {Evernia mlpina) . The inside is well felted with black tree moss and contains a 

 few pieces of fine grass and one breast feather of a Red-tailed Hawk. It is 110 

 mm. in diameter with an outside depth of 60 mm. and an inside depth of 30 mm. 



