Medium-sized finch with a crisscrossed bill. Adult males are red overall with darker brownish-red wings (some individuals may show wingbars).
Full-bodied finch with a crisscrossed bill. Females are yellowish with dark unmarked wings.
A medium-sized songbird with a unique crossed bill. Crossbills use their specialized bill to pry open conifer cones and then extract the seeds found inside.
Juveniles are heavily streaked overall with thin buffy wingbars, which can be hard to see depending on position of the bird.
Different Red Crossbill populations, known as "types," have distinctly different flight calls and bill shapes that are adapted for different types of cones.
Immature males are a patchy mix of red and orangish yellow feathers as they molt into adult plumage. Note dark unmarked wings and tail.
Typical call is a series of short, sharp "jip" notes.
Uses its crisscrossed bill to extract seeds from pine cones. Females are yellowish overall.
Moves in large nomadic flocks in search of good cone crops.
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A stocky, medium-sized songbird with short, notched tail and an unusual, twisted bill that crosses when closed.
Larger than a warbler, smaller than a Red-winged Blackbird, but there’s much size variation: the smallest types are barely larger than a Black-capped Chickadee, while the largest are larger than a Brown-headed Cowbird.
sparrow-sized or smallerOrnithologists have discovered that different crossbill populations, some of them previously defined as subspecies, have distinctly different flight calls and bill shapes that are adapted for different types of cones. They now term these different groups “types,” rather than subspecies. In some cases, these types behave like full species—that is, only breeding with others of their type. Scientists call this assortative mating. In 2015, the “type 9” Red Crossbill, known only from Idaho, was elevated to the status of full species, Cassia Crossbill. Studies are now focused on the degrees of difference between the other 10 North American (and more than a dozen Eurasian) types of Red Crossbill. It is possible that more types will become recognized as full species. Currently, field identification of a Red Crossbill type requires a recording of its flight call.
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