The Crossbills 



Taken in Fresno County 



ROUGH COUNTRY 



BUT THE RESIDENT CROSSBILLS TAKE THE AIR ROUTE 



Photo by the A ulhor 



ards. They are all a bit uncanny. And of all this mad coterie, the 

 Crossbill is perhaps the most eccentric. At a time a flock will deploy 

 through the tree-tops of a city park and feed in dead silence, while pedes- 

 trians troop by unnoticing. At another a passing trio of birds will fill the 

 air with sharp metallic notes which compel attention from any wayfarer. 

 Now the birds will flee noisily at the most distant approach of a stranger. 

 Again they will submit to the closest inspection as they crawl about the 

 lower branches of a cone-laden sapling. For no good reason, apparently, 

 a distant male will shout his distinct call from a tree-top. Others will 

 chatter amiably at your feet as they glean fallen seeds, and look up with 

 the trustfulness of petted hens. I recall how as a youngster I caught 

 one of these birds in midair by rushing him on such an occasion. But a 

 Crossbill in the hand is still an enigma, a strange, foreign thing, evidently 

 not compounded of flesh and blood. For the rest, he is a wandering 

 voice — or a set of such voices — restless, intermittent, syncopated, vagrant. 

 And though we shall proceed now to sober discourse of habit, song, 

 and nesting, it will be under a haunting sense of unreality. As likely as 

 not a bevy of "those crazy Crossbills" will interrupt our task, and we 

 shall pause to note the fall and rise of each bird — flight as well as song 



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