WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL 527 



LOXIA LEUCOPTERA LEUCOPTERA Gnielin 



White-winjred Crossbill 



PLATE 27 



Contributed by Wendell Taber 



Habits 



Smoke rises straight in the frosty stillness of an early September 

 morning. Slowly the mist clears to reveal a tiny body of water. 

 Tucked in at the 3,500-foot level in a region where the tree Ime is 

 around 4,500 feet or less, Speck Pond lies nearly surrounded by the 

 steep, towering, coniferous-clad walls of those wild Maine peaks, 

 Mahoosuc and Old Speck. 



From across the lake comes a white-winged crossbill, then another, 

 and yet another. Others appear, seemingly from nowhere. Soon 

 a small inquiring flock has assembled, calling constantly as if to sum- 

 mon yet more birds. As my companion and I stand a foot apart 

 talking, a brilliant male dashes knee-high between us. A bird alights 

 on my friend. Everywhere, birds are busily foraging on the ground, 

 gleaning food too minute for us to see. They explore the rock 

 fireplace or pass beneath those long flattened logs that form the retain- 

 ing wall and bench at the front of the lean-to. Quickly becoming 

 acclimated, they enter the lean-to itself to pry around in the dried 

 balsam needles of the built-up bottom. I have seen birds, equally 

 at ease in a long, dark, windowless cabin, penetrate into its inner- 

 most recesses. Inquisitively, a resplendent male ahghts on the top 

 of a log resting at an angle against the rock wail of the fireplace. 

 While the bird watches us preparing breakfast, the lower end of the 

 log, not 3 feet distant, burns merrily. Enjoy the birds while 

 we can; next year there will be no enticing crop of cones and the birds 

 will have vanished. Somewhere, coastwise perhaps, they will have 

 located a new food supply. 



Courtship. — Joseph Grinnell (1900) observed the courtship of this 

 species in the Kotzebue Sound region of Alaska on Apr. 26, 1899. He 

 says: "Two or three pairs were apparently already mated, for they 

 were detached from the main flock, each by itself. The males were 

 singing very loudly a twitter somewhat resembhng that of the Ameri- 

 can Goldfinch, but coarser. The females were shy, flying covertly 

 from tree to tree and darting through the fohage to avoid the oflBcious 

 advances of the males, who were following them. The latter flew 

 in broad circles above the females, with slowly beating wings, singing 

 continuously, and finally settling on quivering, outstretched wings to 

 a tree-top." 



