Michael Frankis
conehead
I've got Common Crossbill ['spruce crossbill'], and (Parrot + Scottish) Crossbill ['pine crossbill'], on my list, as two ticks.
Michael
Michael
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Scottish Crossbill (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter pduxon
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Fulmar
Well-known member
On a visit to the Osprey Centre near Aviemore, Scotland, I looked at their species board: among the many listed was "Crossbill spp". When I asked the staff about it they answered that they didn't know which Crossbills were around there, because you would have to catch them to measure their bills, and because they thought that the Common or Parrot was also around there. When even they don't know......
Happily I didn't see a Crossbill in Scotland, it saved me from a big predicament. Although I would have tried to tape the call.
Regards,
Peter
Happily I didn't see a Crossbill in Scotland, it saved me from a big predicament. Although I would have tried to tape the call.
Regards,
Peter
Charles Harper
Régisseur
I'd like to go back to: why can't they get funding for the real flagship species, Pinus sylvestris? Aren't plants eligible? Why mess around with a spectral species that nobody seems to be able to identify? Seems like Cox's Sandpiper....
Michael Frankis
conehead
Hi Charles,
Because Scots Pine is native in just about every EU state; Sweden & Finland in particular have millions of acres of it. The ones in Scotland are of special interest (as are also the ones in Iberia and Greece) as being at the limits of the species' range, occurring in atypical climatic conditions and so forming unusual species communities - a species whose central range is central Siberia, occurring together with oceanic species whose main range is places like the Canary Islands. This is the sort of thing (unusual habitats & communities) that should count towards EU funding, but it doesn't work like that.
Michael
Because Scots Pine is native in just about every EU state; Sweden & Finland in particular have millions of acres of it. The ones in Scotland are of special interest (as are also the ones in Iberia and Greece) as being at the limits of the species' range, occurring in atypical climatic conditions and so forming unusual species communities - a species whose central range is central Siberia, occurring together with oceanic species whose main range is places like the Canary Islands. This is the sort of thing (unusual habitats & communities) that should count towards EU funding, but it doesn't work like that.
Michael
Michael Frankis
conehead
Hi Colin,
I gather if you plot bill size of individuals identified by call type, you get something like this (except very simplified with regard to Commons, of which there are three different call types each with different bill size distributions!!).
Does make identification other than by call analysis very, very difficult! But a Parrot toward the upper end of its bill size range can be identified with reasonable confidence in the field; ditto small-billed Commons (medium/large-billed Commons it is also fairly reasonable to call Common most of the time, as Scottish is a rare type).
Michael
I gather if you plot bill size of individuals identified by call type, you get something like this (except very simplified with regard to Commons, of which there are three different call types each with different bill size distributions!!).
Does make identification other than by call analysis very, very difficult! But a Parrot toward the upper end of its bill size range can be identified with reasonable confidence in the field; ditto small-billed Commons (medium/large-billed Commons it is also fairly reasonable to call Common most of the time, as Scottish is a rare type).
Michael
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Nothing of real value to add to this debate except to say nearly 20 years ago I saw some Crossbills somewhere on Speyside ( near Kingussie just close to some nursery/garden centre kinda place ). I ticked them as "Scottish" Crossbill ( hey they were in Scotland after all and I was only 15 and had no idea that Common let alone Parrot Crossbill were also in the area)......................now of course I wouldn't have a clue which species they were as they appear to be nearly impossible to identify by the likes of me.
We get a lot of ( Common ) Crossbills here in the winter. Maybe they haven't been studied as much as those in Europe. Perhaps there is a Hokkaido Crossbill waiting out there to totally confuse the birders over here ......................
We get a lot of ( Common ) Crossbills here in the winter. Maybe they haven't been studied as much as those in Europe. Perhaps there is a Hokkaido Crossbill waiting out there to totally confuse the birders over here ......................
Hi all,
Sorry I'm late to this discussion.
Someone has stated that most of the crossbills in Speyside are Common, but in a recent survey of breeding Crossbills only 1% of them were Common, whereas 75% were Parrot. Common Crossbil are known in Norway as Spruce Crossbill as they prefer spruce and not the mature Pine trees like those in Speyside (Parrot are known as Pine Crossbill, this has been stated by Mr Frankis.
I go to Speyside every Easter break for 4 days and have done so for the last ten years or so and I have never seen Common Crossbill in Speyside (not including flyover Crossbill Sp.) I often see Crossbills here in West Yorks and the calls are much sweeter than any I have heard in Speyside, where the vocalisation appears to be deeper.
I tick Parrot when I see the large billed (and bull-necked)birds and Scottish when I see the smaller billed birds in Speyside as recent literature shows only a tiny percentage are Common Crossbill.
Also at that time of year Common Crossbill should be nearing the end of their breeding season (a couple of months ahead of the other 2 sp.) and are found in their prefered trees, the Spruce.
Mark
Sorry I'm late to this discussion.
Someone has stated that most of the crossbills in Speyside are Common, but in a recent survey of breeding Crossbills only 1% of them were Common, whereas 75% were Parrot. Common Crossbil are known in Norway as Spruce Crossbill as they prefer spruce and not the mature Pine trees like those in Speyside (Parrot are known as Pine Crossbill, this has been stated by Mr Frankis.
I go to Speyside every Easter break for 4 days and have done so for the last ten years or so and I have never seen Common Crossbill in Speyside (not including flyover Crossbill Sp.) I often see Crossbills here in West Yorks and the calls are much sweeter than any I have heard in Speyside, where the vocalisation appears to be deeper.
I tick Parrot when I see the large billed (and bull-necked)birds and Scottish when I see the smaller billed birds in Speyside as recent literature shows only a tiny percentage are Common Crossbill.
Also at that time of year Common Crossbill should be nearing the end of their breeding season (a couple of months ahead of the other 2 sp.) and are found in their prefered trees, the Spruce.
Mark
Michael Frankis
conehead
Hi Mark,
Unfortunately, you can't rely on a survey from one year, to apply to other years at all. Probably the year of that survey, spruces had a nil (or very low) cone crop, while pines probably had a decent crop. The next year, the spruces might have a large crop, and the pines a small one, and the crossbill ratios will be totally different, as all crossbills, but particularly Common Crossbills, are highly mobile, respond rapidly to cone crop changes from year to year and region to region. So unless your observations were in the year (and preferably month!) of the survey, you can't realistically tick Scottish.
Worth bearing in mind too, that 'Common Crossbill' (in Britain at least) comprises probably three different taxa, corresponding to call types A, B and E (Brit. Birds 96: 100-111, 2003). In Northumberland, the huge winter 1990-91 influx (when there were an incredible quarter million crossbills by the end of a highly successful breeding season on a massive Sitka Spruce cone crop, the birds were about 50:50 types A & B, while the last large influx, in winter 2001-02, about 98% were type E birds.
The species preference isn't anything like as firm as we would all like it to be. Common Crossbills will feed quite happily on Scots Pine; the crunch appears to be that although they can utilise Scots Pine to feed themselves, they probably can't open the cones fast enough to get sufficient seed to raise a large brood of chicks, maybe fledging just one or two young instead of four or five. So they can't survive well in the long-term on pine, but can in the short term. Same goes for Parrots on spruce, they can use it as individuals, but probably not to maintain populations over years. So sadly, you can't really identify a crossbill by what tree it is feeding in.
To emphasize that, this April (following a very poor spruce crop in the 2002/03 winter) I watched a flock of about 40 crossbills in native pinewood on Deeside; every bird that I got a good look at (over half the flock) had a slender bill, and their calls were all fairly high pitch. I have no doubt that they were all Commons (likely, but not definitely, type E's left over from 01/02), despite feeding well in pines. Someone told me that at the same time there were also numbers of Commons similarly on native pines on Speyside.
Michael
Unfortunately, you can't rely on a survey from one year, to apply to other years at all. Probably the year of that survey, spruces had a nil (or very low) cone crop, while pines probably had a decent crop. The next year, the spruces might have a large crop, and the pines a small one, and the crossbill ratios will be totally different, as all crossbills, but particularly Common Crossbills, are highly mobile, respond rapidly to cone crop changes from year to year and region to region. So unless your observations were in the year (and preferably month!) of the survey, you can't realistically tick Scottish.
Worth bearing in mind too, that 'Common Crossbill' (in Britain at least) comprises probably three different taxa, corresponding to call types A, B and E (Brit. Birds 96: 100-111, 2003). In Northumberland, the huge winter 1990-91 influx (when there were an incredible quarter million crossbills by the end of a highly successful breeding season on a massive Sitka Spruce cone crop, the birds were about 50:50 types A & B, while the last large influx, in winter 2001-02, about 98% were type E birds.
The species preference isn't anything like as firm as we would all like it to be. Common Crossbills will feed quite happily on Scots Pine; the crunch appears to be that although they can utilise Scots Pine to feed themselves, they probably can't open the cones fast enough to get sufficient seed to raise a large brood of chicks, maybe fledging just one or two young instead of four or five. So they can't survive well in the long-term on pine, but can in the short term. Same goes for Parrots on spruce, they can use it as individuals, but probably not to maintain populations over years. So sadly, you can't really identify a crossbill by what tree it is feeding in.
To emphasize that, this April (following a very poor spruce crop in the 2002/03 winter) I watched a flock of about 40 crossbills in native pinewood on Deeside; every bird that I got a good look at (over half the flock) had a slender bill, and their calls were all fairly high pitch. I have no doubt that they were all Commons (likely, but not definitely, type E's left over from 01/02), despite feeding well in pines. Someone told me that at the same time there were also numbers of Commons similarly on native pines on Speyside.
Michael
CJW
Hit-and-run WUM
jpoyner said:Presume you saw this bird in the hand then?
It was actually, but I can remember very little about it (it was over 20 years ago) other than that the chaps who were ringing took great pains to point out to us that the bill measurements were too big for common crossbill. Ofcourse, given what we know now, they could just as easily have been Parrot Crossbills. Kinda feel guilty about it being on my list, but at the time......
jpoyner
Well-known member
Mark D said:
Not sure what survey this was, but it really does depend on when it was taken as Michael said. In spring and summer this year, certainly the majority of birds here in Speyside were Common Crossbills with Parrot quite easy to find if you looked. All of these birds seem to move in and out of the area, with there being hardly any at the moment of any description.
According to the literature the forests should still contain these "sedentary" Scottish type birds yet they are certainly not here at the moment. In the 5 years I have lived here I would certainly say that the majority of birds I randomly encounter are in the main Common, followed by obvious Parrot and then occasionally birds which seem to fit neither types. This agrees with proportions which as I am reliably informed are caught during survey work. Personally, I think that "Scottish" types are a remnant of a population af Parrots which are evolving smaller bills to adapt to local food sources ie. more spruce. We are just seeing evolution in action, but always try to put things in neat little boxes.
JP
Michael Frankis
conehead
CJW said:
Hi CJ,
If this was in native pine forest roundabout 1980-ish, it would almost certainly have been Parrot - see fig. 1 in Brit Birds 96: 103 (2003). Virtually all the birds live trapped in the native pinewoods have had bills either >12.5mm (male) / > 12.3mm (female) (Parrots), or else <11.3mm (m) / <11.2mm (f) (Common), only 4 or 5 intermediate (Scottish). This contrasts strongly with the much wider scatter of bill sizes for 19th C & early 20th C museum specimens with lots in the intermediate range.
Michael
Alastair Rae
London birder
It is interesting that the RSPB seem to think that common/scottish/parrot are one species based on a lack of difference in their DNA.
(See http://www.rspb.org.uk/science/Ecology/scottish_crossbill.asp )
At first reading of this thread, I thought that it didn't matter that I've never seen Scottish, at least I'd seen Parrot. Now they want to take my Parrot tick away! We're always happy to tick a split, but nobody likes a lump.
(See http://www.rspb.org.uk/science/Ecology/scottish_crossbill.asp )
At first reading of this thread, I thought that it didn't matter that I've never seen Scottish, at least I'd seen Parrot. Now they want to take my Parrot tick away! We're always happy to tick a split, but nobody likes a lump.
Hi Alistair,
The paper doesn't suggest a lump per se,it merely points out that there is a possibility that the lack of difference in DNA may be due to Common,Scottish and Parrot being three "morphs" of the one species.It also suggests that this lack of difference may be due to a low level of hybridisation(and thus gene flow)between the three,or due to all three having diverged from each other relatively recently(large gulls present a similar situation....).
Harry H
The paper doesn't suggest a lump per se,it merely points out that there is a possibility that the lack of difference in DNA may be due to Common,Scottish and Parrot being three "morphs" of the one species.It also suggests that this lack of difference may be due to a low level of hybridisation(and thus gene flow)between the three,or due to all three having diverged from each other relatively recently(large gulls present a similar situation....).
Harry H
Alastair Rae
London birder
Lack of difference in DNA seems pretty good reason for a lump. After all Danish people are statistically a different shape to Irish people and sound different. But their DNA is more or less identical.
Didn't a BB paper a couple of years ago say that Common Crossbills can have different bill sizes depending on the type of forest they live in? Are the phenotypical differences down to environment rather than genes?
Didn't a BB paper a couple of years ago say that Common Crossbills can have different bill sizes depending on the type of forest they live in? Are the phenotypical differences down to environment rather than genes?
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