The following was just posted on Northern New York birds from Gail 
Benson and Tom Burke, indicating that white-winged crossbills are on the 
move!

White-winged Crossbills
We have encountered them on eight straight days including today at 
virtually every major location we have so far visited. We have also 
encountered several groups of Pine Siskins but no Red Crossbills. 
Locations we have seen White-wings include 6 Bloomingdale, 2 Paul 
Smiths, 2 Tahawus Rd , 18 Adiirondack Loj Road, 1 Whiteface Mt, 3 Spring 
Pond, 6 Ferd's Bog, and a few other flyovers including about 30 just now 
here at Conifer, where there are also 2 Evening Grosbeaks. Also at our 
house in Blue Mt Lake, there have been up to 30 White-wings for the past 
few days feeding on the new spruce and cedar cones as well as drinking 
along the shore of the lake.



Kathleen Shepherd wrote:
> Hello, I have joined your list at Sandy Stettenheim's suggestion
> because of an unusual sighting in Norwich on New Boston Rd. last
> Tuesday.
>
> I was outdoors in the vegetable garden in late afternoon when a large
> flock of birds alighted on the tops of two nearby trees, one a larch,
> and the others on a bare, partially dead red maple nearby.  They
> paused no more than a minute or two and then flew on together.
>
> I would estimate there to have been 75-100 birds in each group.  I was
> able to see several of them very distinctly, although I had never seen
> this bird before.  They had thick finchlike beaks, and matched the
> account of white winged crossbills in my Sibley's.  I was very
> surprised to see them.  I did not actually see the crossed bill, but
> the shape was distinctively finchlike, and it did not occur to me to
> look for the crossed bill.  The only other similar coloration that I
> found was the pine grosbeak, which are larger than these seemed, and
> are not described as traveling in large groups.  The two white
> wingbars look much more like the crossbill's in Sibley's
> illustrations.
>
> Is it likely I was seeing crossbills?
>
> Kathleen Shepherd
> 447 New Boston Rd
> Norwich
>
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  Douglas R. Hardy, Ph.D.   phone: 802-649-1829 or
  Dept. of Geosciences             413-545-0659
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  Univ. of Massachusetts    e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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