Kenn and Haans offer good information on red crossbills. Here in 
Franklin County, we have records for ten months of the year. One 
specimen, colorfully enough, is “a male shot with a pistol by C. Hinman 
from a flock of 8-10 in conifers in his Columbus garden” on the 
intriguing date of 18 June 1878.
        There is a first Ohio record of a nesting pair in Ross County in April 
of 1973, and it seems the vanished Holden Arboretum nestling could serve 
to verify a second confirmed nesting. I remember seeing these birds in 
2001, and the locally-exotic ponderosa pines they frequented.
        As Kenn says, there are probably a number of species of red crossbills, 
and they separate themselves by call. I don't know of many humans who 
can do so with confidence, but recordings can be sorted out. Old 
morphometric techniques don't work: the specimen I mention above was 
studied by three crossbill experts, and was identified as three 
different subspecies---pusilla, benti, and neogaea--but this was before 
the era in which DNA might have helped. OSU has 53 Ohio specimens of 
this red-billed crossbills, and anyone with the DNA know-how would 
probably be welcome to identify them for the Ohio list.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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