Hi all,
 
I went to the Holden Arboretum (Lake County) to look for crossbills in their huge conifer collection today. This is near the corner of Sperry and Kirtland-Chardon Roads. I knew it was going to be a good day when I stepped out of the car and immediately had 3 White-winged Crossbills fly over heading south.  After a little bit of searching I found a nice flock of 12 WWCR in one of the spruce trees. They occasionally switched trees and eventually flew south. This was seconds before Jim and Bret McCarty showed up. It turned out alright since the next 2 hours yielded over 50 more WWCR allowing fantastic views. At one point a small flock landed in the spruce tree that we were standing next to. Here is a breakdown on the flocks:
 
7:45am – 3 (flying south)
8:00am – 12 (mostly males; feeding in tree and then headed south)
8:45am – 1 (single male landed on top of a spruce and continued south)
9:40am – 21 (two flocks - landed, fed for a while and headed south)
10:00am – 25 (one flock – landed for a couple seconds and continued flying south)
10:13am – 1 (flying south)
 
I’ll post some pictures later on my new blog.
 
Ethan Kistler
Newton Falls, Ohio
Nomadicbirder.blogspot.com




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