White-winged Crossbills, Jackson County

[Don Henise]

With the number of White-winged Crossbill posting in southern Michigan,
I'm not sure if this warrants a posting to mich-listers, but since it's
the first report of White-winged Crossbill in Jackson County in the 10
years that I have been birding here, I'll go ahead and cross post it
here for any county listers interested.

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White-winged Crossbills were found in Ella Sharp Park in Jackson County
Thursday, Jan 8th and seen again today the 9th.

The park can be reached by heading south out of Jackson on 4th Street.
The entrance is on the east (left) side of the road just south of the
Parkside Middle School. Enter the park and take the first right onto
Oakwood Drive. Drive past the Museum parking lot and look for Rotunda
Drive on the left. This is just a short lane up to a circular drive in
front of the Rotunda.  The crossbills have been frequenting the spruces
surrounding the rotunda. 

On Thursday we discovered them about 12:00 noon and had one flock of at
least 2 dozen birds. I think there were several smaller flocks of 5 - 10
birds moving around as well. We were there for about an hour as the
birds moved from tree to tree feeding on the cones.  We watched the
large group fly off to the south around 12:30 and at 12:45 they were
reported by another observer south of Probert Road. 

Today we had a small group of 8-10 individuals near the rotunda at
10:30. We had been in the area over an hour before we heard them. If you
drive around the areas to the north and south of the park, you will see
lots of conifers scattered about. However, the spruces at the rotunda
have a good cone crop, so if you are interested in finding White-winged
Crossbill in Jackson County, I would suggest camping out there.
Eventually a flock will fly in.  

Don & Robyn Henise
 
Librarians
New Tribes Bible Institute
Jackson, MI
don_henise at ntm.org