First Record of the White-Winged Crossbill in California
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Thefollowing article is thefifth in a serieson Californiararities edited by Morlan and Roberson.It is based on materialssubmitted to the California Bird RecordsCommittee (CBRC). The descriptionand circumstanceswere drawnfrom the accountsof the observerand havebeen reviewed by him. Robersonprepared the distributionalsummary; Morlan prepared the iden- tificationsummary. In this way we hope much importantinformation ac- cumulatedin CBRC files will become widely available. White-wingedCrossbills Sketch by Tim Manolis FIRST RECORD OF THE WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL IN CALIFORNIA PHIL GORDON, 4634 Mira Lorna, CastroValley, California92546 JOSEPH MORLAN, 417 Talbot Ave., Albany, California94706 DON ROBERSON, 282 Grove Acre Ave., Pacific Grove, California 93950 In the afternoonof 1 September1978, Phil Gordon and his son Geoffrey were fishingnear their camp at MosquitoLake in the Salmon-TrinityAlps WildernessArea, Trinity County, California.This area is at an elevationof 6600 feet (2010 m), about 7 miles west of the Scott Mountain summit on countyhighway 3. The 20-acrelake is in a smallglacial cirque basin below a crestthat dividesSiskiyou and Trinitycounties. It is surroundedby scattered PonderosaPinus ponderosa and WesternWhite P. monticolapines, Red Fir Abies magnifica, Incense Cedar Libocedrusdecurrens, and Mountain HemlockTsuga mertensiana. A canary-liketwittering drew the Gordons'at- tentionto a flockof finchesperched quietly, seemingly feeding in the top of a fir. The birdsthen flew one by one to anotherfir 70 to 80 feet away. The Gordons watched the flock of 12 birds several times that afternoon. The birds movedrestlessly from branchto branch,sometimes at distancesof several hundredyards, but oncethey cameas closeas 75 to 80 feet. Althoughthe birdsstayed mostly in the topsof the firs,they descendedto within15 feetof the groundon one occasion.Viewing conditionswere poor and backlitat first, but later the birdsallowed a fairly closestudy for 4 or 5 minutes. The birdsseemed to be crossbills,but the tighttwitter or trillof three or four phrasesat differentpitches was unlikethe callsof Red CrossbillsLoxia cur- WesternBirds 20: 81-87, 1989 81 WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL IN CALIFORNIA virostrathat Gordon knew from the Sierra Nevada. With better views, two white wingbarsbecame conspicuous, and Pine SiskinsCarduelis pinus and Pine GrosbeaksPinicola enucleator became considerations.However, the three red birds in the flock ruled out siskins,and the small size and slender long bill eliminated the Pine Grosbeak. Gordon identified them as White- winged CrossbillsLoxia leucoptera. When Gordon and his son returned home from the camping trip three days later, they wrote descriptionson the CBRC's report form. Gordon wrote short, succinctnotes, which he has expanded into sentencesas follows: These were smallfinches the sizeof a sparrowor of a House Finch Carpodacus mexicanusbut seemedchunklet than a House Finch. The tail was shortwith a deep notch. Three birdswere reddish on the head, neck, throat, breastand sides;the other nine were overallgreenish gray. The lowerbelly and sidesof the birds,especially the greenishones, were streaked with dark. The darkishwings of bothforms showed two brightwhite wingbars, which were unmistakableon all of the birds. The lightingand position(perched on uppersurface of branches)made observation of the "crossedbill" difficult.One male had a thin, down-curvedupper mandiblepro- jectingbeyond the lower mandible,but I did not see it cross.Otherwise the bill was small and conical. The exact bill color was not noted but seemed to be medium dark. GeoffreyGordon's notes were briefer: Maleswere brightred with blackwings. Females were greenishwith no outstanding characters.Each had a white wingbarwith a smallerwingbar above that was almost reduced to a white dot. Both observersdrew rough sketchesshowing the locationof wingbarsand basic bill shape (rather long and thin); Geoffrey's sketch emphasizedthe reduced extent of the upper wingbar. This record of the White-wingedCrossbill was unanimouslyaccepted as a firstfor Californiaby the CBRC afterthree circulations (Luther et al. 1983). In early circulation,a dissenterraised the possibilityof Pine Grosbeaks,noting that thisspecies has a disproportionatelysmall bill with a downcurvedculmen and behavesmuch in the way thesebirds were described(feeding slowly at the tips of branches,then movingone by one to the next tree). Furthermore, the "brightred" or "reddish"color seemed to be lesspink than somemembers expected,and the birdswere seenmostly at substantialdistances. In the end, though,even the dissentervoted to accept,persuaded by the birds'small size (aboutthat of House Finch, but chunkier),the reduced upper wingbar,and especiallyby the streakingon the lower belly. Some membersnoted that the twitteringcalls were appropriatefor the White-winged Crossbilland pointed out that the species had occurred in numbers in British Columbia and Washington(outside of its usualhaunts) in the summer and fall of 1978 (but littleinto Oregon; see more under "Distributional Summary"). One notedthat Godfrey(1966) describedthe colorof malesas "brightscarlet or vermilionin summer, dull and pinkishin winter." Also persuasivewas Gordon'sprior ex- periencewith the Pine Grosbeak,which has never occurredin northwestern California. The Pine Grosbeak in California is a sedentaryresident in the SierraNevada. RichardA. Ericksonvisited Mosquito Lake ten dayslater but was unsuccessfulin finding any crossbills. 82 WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL IN CALIFORNIA DISTRIBUTIONAL SUMMARY The White-winged Crossbillis a Holarctic speciesof boreal forests,par- ticularlyspruce, fir, or latch (A.O.U. 1983). In North Americait rangesfrom westernAlaska to Labradorand southin the Cascadesto Washington,in the Rockiesto Wyoming(and irregularly to northernUtah, centralColorado, and northernNew Mexico), and in the Eastto Maine (A.O.U. 1983; Figure1). It often winterswithin its breedingrange but is irruptivefollowing cone crop failures(Bock and Lepthien 1976). During suchinvasions it has occurredas far south as Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida (DeSante and Pyle 1986), where it feedson conesof other treesand the fruit of the Sweetgum Liquidarnbarstyraciflua (George 1968). In October 1971, two rode a trans- Atlanticpassenger ship from Newfoundlandto Ireland(Abramson 1974). Ir- ruptionsin the Northwestcan be impressive.Jewett et al. (1953) wrote of a "remarkableincursion" during the winterof 1908-09 throughoutthe Puget Sound area of Washington.Prior to 1940, however, the specieswas known in Oregon only from two specimenscollected 12 July 1938 on the upper Figure1. Approximatebreeding range of the White-wingedCrossbill in westernNorth America (shaded),with extralimitalrecords mentioned in the text (asterisks),and loca- tion of this record (star). 83 WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL IN CALIFORNIA Lostine River, Wallowa County, and a 19th-century sight record in WashingtonCounty (Gabrielsonand Jewett 1940). More recentirruptions in the Casadesnorth of Californiaoccurred in 1974, 1978, 1981, and 1985. Thesetypically began during late July, and flocks oftenspread south or towardthe coastduring the fall, usuallytapering off by mid-October.The 1974 movementwas largelylimited to the mountainsof southernBritish Columbia and Washington(Crowell and Nehls1975), witha lone Oregon occurrenceat La Grande in the northeast(Rogers 1975). In 1978, the year of the Californiasighting, the species"appeared abruptly and in largenumbers" throughout the WashingtonCascades and OlympicMoun- tains in August (Harrington-Tweit et al. 1978) and continued as a "great surge"through the Casadesto Mt. Hood, Oregon, with one as far southas Bend, DeschutesCounty, in central Oregon, on 24 November (Rogers 1979). In 1981, an irruptionsent birds south during early September to Gold and Waldo lakes,Lane County, in the OregonJancentral Cascades (Hunn and Mattocks1982). In the summerof 1984, an irruptionin the Great Basin resultedin a recordfor LasVegas, Nevada, the secondfor thatstate (Kingery 1984). However, the most impressivemovements occurred in 1985, when an August-Septemberincursion brought flocks of up to 60 birdssouth in the centralCascades to highelevations in Lane, Douglas,Deschutes, and north- western Klamath counties (Summers 1986, Hunn and Mattocks 1986). Thesesites are only about100 milesnorth of the Californiaborder. Each re- centirruption has seemingly sent flocks farther south than previously (though thismight be a functionof increasedobserver coverage). The speciesshould again be looked for in northernCalifornia, especially at higherelevations duringthe late summerand fall of the next irruption. SUBSPECIES In contrastto the Red Crossbill,which exhibitsan enormousamount of geographicvariation and mayconsist of severalcryptic species (Groth 1988), the White-wingedCrossbill exhibits very little variation. Only threesubspecies havebeen described (Howell et al. 1968). L. I. leucoptera,breeding in North America,is smaller and smaller-billedthan L. I. bifasciataof Eurasia(Witherby et al. 1943). North American birds have been reported from Europe and recentlyfrom extremeeastern Siberia (Tomkovich and Sorokin1983), but Eurasianbirds have not beenreported in NorthAmerica. A third, larger-billed subspecies,L. I. megaplaga(Riley 1916), is confined to the island of Hispaniola,where nestingwas confirmedin 1971 (Kepler et al. 1975). On geographicgrounds, the Californiabirds may be presumedto havebeen L. I. leucoptera,although the describedsmall bill alsosuggests this race. IDENTIFICATION