[cobirds] Re: RFI -- crossbills and cone crops

Hi Cody,

Is there a protocol/standards that you might suggest that would qualify as a good cone crop in an area?

Stephen Chang

Boulder

On Sunday, April 29, 2018 at 6:13:18 PM UTC-6, Cody Porter wrote:

Hi all,

I'm here with my annual request for information on the whereabouts of good cone crops and crossbills.

Unfortunately, cone crops over much of the Rockies were non-existent or very poor this last year, causing a mass exodus of our usually abundant type 2 (ponderosa pine) crossbills to the Great Lakes and Northeast region (though it seems there have been several holdouts at feeders along the Front Range and even deeper in the mountains). Hopefully as summer progresses, good cone crops will develop and crossbills will return.

As usual, I am particularly interested in hearing about developing ponderosa pine, douglas-fir, and Engelmann/blue spruce cone crops. It is still too early to detect a developing spruce/fir cone crop, but developing ponderosa pine cones should be visible right now. Basically, look for lots of small purple cones on ponderosa branches (see attached photo for an example, taken on April 12 a few years ago). Come late June/early July, spruce and doug-fir will have similar small purple cones all over, if they are to have a good cone crop (attached is a not so great photo of that from July 6 two years ago).

Any information (even the absence of a good cone crop in an area) is greatly appreciated. The unpredictable nature of conifer cone crops and crossbills makes working on them an...interesting challenge, but the information you folks have given me over the past few years has made things go much more smoothly than I anticipated when I first started this project.

Good birding,
Cody Porter
Laramie, WY

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