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The White Winged Crossbill has a smaller, thinner bill than the Red Crossbill. This makes it much more efficient at getting seeds out of smaller cones such as spruce and tamarack. They are 15 to 17 cm in length. Males are raspberry-pink in colour, and females are grayer, without any pink. Both sexes have two white bars on each wing, which is where the name comes from.
Nests are made from strips of bark, grass, and roots lined with moss and plant down, and placed near the end of a conifer branch. The White Winged Crossbill will lay 2 to 4 pale blue eggs, spotted with dark brown. Songs consist of a soft chiff-chiff-chiff.
The White Winged Crossbill is a nomadic bird, wandering the forests of North America in search of large cone crops. Trees will produce very few cones for several years in a row, and then a huge crop to ensure their seeds are not all taken by these birds. For this reason the Crossbill is always in search of the huge seed crops, when their numbers flourish, and the air is filled with their song.
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WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL
Loxia leucoptera
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