February 25, 2018 - Avian Concussion Protocol

We are less than four weeks from the vernal equinox and it felt like it could be tomorrow with the record warm temperatures throughout New England last week - it was in the 60's in the Lakes Region, and it hit 80 in northern Massachusetts.  The birds certainly thought spring was coming as a flock of titmice were up in tops of the trees singing their spring arias, and the chick-a-dees were sharing their gentle "dee-dee" song of springtime.  I also saw my first purple finch of the year.

Another finch, however, had an unfortunate altercation with a window.  I heard the bang on the window, knew what happened and went out to assess the damage.  What I thought was a poor little goldfinch was sitting on the snow, stunned and motionless.

A stunned finch

I could see it was going through the NFL concussion protocol before getting back into the game.  I checked on her several times over the next 15 minutes and was getting concerned she might not recover.  But on the last check she reacted to my presence and flew off to join her flock with no obvious impairment.  But while she was stationary on the ground I was able to get a good look at it and see it was not a goldfinch, but rather a female red crossbill - the bill was the obvious factor.

Female Red Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra)

The fine elements of its feathers show how it can insulate itself in the winter with tiny pockets of trapped air, and the cross-beak facilitates the extraction of seeds from pine, spruce, and hemlock cones.

I hadn't seen a red crossbill before, so it's a new one for my list.  And I had to look it up, passing by the red crossbill at first, not expecting a yellow bird to fit this name.  But only the male is red;  the female is yellow.  An interesting aspect of this bird is that it will breed at any time of year, even in the middle of winter, if there is a good food supply.  And this winter is certainly a good cone year as indicated by all the white pine cones in the trees last summer, and all the cone shreds seen all winter long on the snow.

White pine cone shreds

Hemlock too

There are scenes like this wherever coniferous trees are present

Still a few whole cones lined up for the next meal

Even with warm weather there's still a good amount of snow around except for open areas with southerly exposure, and fresh snow early in the week and again today helped freshen things up.

Fresh snow shines brightly in the morning sun earlier in the week

And more snow today

Just a couple of days ago things were looking grim and this weekend both the dog sled races and the LRCT ski event at the Castle in the Clouds were cancelled;  today's snow was just a little to late for them.  Let's hope next weekend's Lake Wicwas Association snowshoe tour doesn't also fall victim to the weather (everyone is invited - let me know if you're interested).  If it does, at least we'll enjoy the signs of spring in advance of the coming equinox.

Photo by Linda Powell