Princeton 3/9--White-winged Crossbill

We were up in Mercer County this morning buying dishes and figured as long as we're in the neighborhood, let's drive over to Princeton.  For the last month or so, in the sweetgum trees along Washington Road, which runs right through the campus, White-winged Crossbills, another of the finches that irrupted this year, have been sighted. I went with very little hope of actually finding them; someone had mentioned on line that by now the sweetgum balls had probably been exhausted. Still, I hadn't been in Princeton in about 40 years so we drove the 15 minutes or so, miraculously found a parking spot--a good omen prophesied Shari--and walked among the students peering up into the trees.

With no luck of course. However, using the find the birders, not the bird technique, Shari saw a woman down the block peering intently through binoculars. "Any luck?" we asked. "Yes, right there, by the curb," she said. So instead of straining our necks looking high in the treetops, we saw this female crossbill on the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street:

Photos: Shari Zirlin

A moment later, slightly farther down the block, the male appeared.

Note the sweetgum balls in the foreground.

So right there the day was a success. After lunch on Nassau Street, we drove home by way of New Egypt. The Northern Lapwings are still there, though the cranes and Greater White-fronted Geese were not. Icterids were swirling around. In one tree I found our first four Brown-headed Cowbirds of the year. Considering we both have colds and don't feel so hot, it still came out a decent birding day.