UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 1249 



Washington, D. C. 



October 27, 1924 



FOOD HABITS OF SOME WINTER BIRD VISITANTS. 



By Ira N. Gabrielson, Assistant Biologist, Division of Economic Investigations, 

 Bureau of Biological Survey. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 1 



Evening grosbeak 3 



Pine grosbeak 5 



Red crossbill 9 



White-winged crossbill 12 



Hoary redpoll 14 



Common redpoll 15 



Pine siskin 16 



Page. 



Snow bunting 18 



Lapland longspur 22 



Smith longspur 25 



Chestnut-collared longspur 26 



McCowan longspur 27 



Common pipit 27 



Sprague pipit! 32 



INTRODUCTION. 



Every year as winter approaches the majority of the birds that 

 have been present during the summer disappear and their places 

 are taken by other species from the north. With few exceptions 

 these winter visitors have nested either in the mountains or in the 

 northern regions. Some of them are rare, and nearly all are known 

 to the people of the United States only as " winter visitants." 

 These birds tend to be erratic in their movements, being present 

 in a locality in large numbers one season and then perhaps 

 wholly absent for several succeeding years. The crossbills and 

 grosbeaks, which feed to a great extent on seeds of various conifers, 

 are the most erratic, not only in their winter migrations but in 

 the time of breeding as well. Our winter bird visitants have inter- 

 esting habits and behavior, and as they appear when most other 

 birds are scarce they are especially welcome. 



Of the species treated in this bulletin, 1 the pine and evening gros- 

 beaks, redpolls, crossbills, and pine siskins are primarily birds of the 



a Prepared by the author when a member of the present Division of Food Habits 

 Research. 



1 The species treated in this bulletin include several winter bird visitants the food 

 habits of which have not already been published. Numerous species of the sparrow 

 tribe, for instance, besides those here included, are characteristic winter visitors, but 

 their food habits have already been treated in Biological Survey Bulletin No. 15, The 

 Relation of Sparrows to Agriculture, by Dr. Sylvester D. Judd, 1901. The horned 

 larks have a bulletin to themselves, No>. 23 of the Biological Survey, by W. L. McAtee, 

 1905. The hawks and owls are treated by Dr. A. K. Fisher in Bulletin No. 3 of the 

 Biological Survey, 1893 ; and in Circular No. 61 of the same bureau, 1907. And a 

 number of the characteristic smaller winter birds are discussed in Fanners' Bulletins 

 Nos. 506 and 630. 



85500°— 24 1 



