The Condor/Volume 1/Number 2/American Crossbills in Alameda Co., Cal.

American Crossbills in Alameda Co., Cal. For many years I have been on the watch for the Crossbill in this part of the San Francisco Bay region, having seen them on several trips in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. The former county lies along the ocean shore and in an air line from this locality, so I have naturally expected to some day see a few stragglers appear. In the first part of January of this year, at daylight on two or three occasions I noticed a flock of thick-set, quick-flying, piping birds leave the tops of some tall gum trees on the place and fly away. One morning I saw them fly to the top of some tall poplars, where I went to make out the species if possible. I saw at once that they were Crossbills and were feeding on the buds. Later in the day they flew to a large gum tree beside the house, where, after some delay, I made them out with the glass and soon secured one. Another was shot from the top of a Monterey cypress where they had gone to feed on the seeds of the cones, as I found later, on skinning them. Of the two birds shot on Jan. 26, 1899 one was in a greenish-red plumage showing a juvenile and was very fat with the crop full of soft seeds of the cypress and eucalyptus. The other male was of a rich golden-green plumage, flecked with cherry-red, showing an immature bird. On Jan. 30, 1899 a male was found dead under the big gum tree, and which must have been wounded by a long shot taken at the flock in the top of the tall trees and died on the cold night of the 30th. This was a male in adult plumage of a purplish-red with a few yellowish and gray feathers showing in the throat. The body of this bird was very thin. The weather becoming milder in a day or so the Crossbills disappeared, no doubt for their breeding grounds in the pine forests. I saw them in pairs in January at Pacific Grove where they could be heard in the pine-tops feeding on the seeds of the cones. This was on the edge of a small pond back in the forest. I have seen them come to the water's edge to drink. So far as I can find data this is their first appearance in Alameda Co. and I should be pleased to hear from anyone in the state who has observed them.W. Otto Emerson, Haywards, Cal.