This little bird of the finch family is very unusual. Its size is a little more than a sparrow. The females have a greenish-gray plumage with yellow spots on the edges of the feathers, and the males have real dandies: a raspberry jacket and a gray shirt-front. But crossbills are not interesting in plumage - there are also brighter birds. Two factors distinguish them from a number of local pichugs: beak parrots and the nesting period. Children appear at their end of winter. Cases were recorded when the female sat on her eggs in severe cold at –35 ° C. Why do crossbills breed chicks in winter? Let's figure it out.
When cold days come, our forests become empty. Most birds are served in the south. But some still remain: blackbirds, magpies, jackdaws. We think that birds are saved from the cold. In fact, they fly after their food - midges. The same birds whose food consists of bugs sleeping under the leaves, as well as those that peck the dry pods of acacia and seeds of cones, remain with us for the winter. Among these permanent residents of Russia there is also a crossbill. With his beak, the ends of which intersect like nippers, he picks out grains from the cones. A lover of pine nuts has tenacious legs. They hold on to a branch and hangs upside down. Like a parrot, a crossbill helps itself with its beak when climbing trees.
But why do crossbills breed chicks in winter, because even blackbirds and ravens bring offspring in the spring, when minutes of cold? In the wild, animals give offspring when they are fully confident in the abundance of food. After all, parents need not only to find food for themselves, but also to raise young animals to their feet. With what
eat crossbills? Their most delicious delicacy is the seeds of conifers. In February or March, the cones open, and these grains are in full view. There are no other hunters for nuts nearby - squirrels sleep in the hollows, and other birds have not yet arrived. Eat - I do not want. Here is a couple of crossbills and begins to twist the nest.
For masonry, the female is looking for a place among the dense branches of spruce. The fluffy crown, powdered with snow, reliably shelters her and young growth from piercing cold winds. Only the best heat-insulating materials are used for construction: moss, lichen, feathers and even animal hair. Therefore, bird nests are warm and reliable. The chicks do not freeze - after all, their mother still warms them with their heat. By the way, their beaks are normal at birth - so it’s easier for a father to shredded seeds in greedy throats. When the young shoots turn two months old, their nose begins to bend. A brood learns to earn food on its own - good, grains of cones have not yet fallen out.
However, the question “why do crossbills breed chicks in winter” is not entirely correct: offspring may appear in summer, especially not far from the field where sunflowers mature. But in pirate raids on agricultural land, crossbills are not alone, other birds compete with them. But in the period from February to March there is a vast expanse for them. There is only one “but”: conifers bear fruit every five years. Therefore, the pichugs need to roam. One winter there are many in the suburbs, while the next - hundreds of kilometers away, in Karelia.
Our "northern parrots" are divided into several species. Sosnovik - the largest, lives in pine forests. The spruce is a little smaller, and the smallest is a white-winged crossbill. We have already answered the question of why crossbills breed chicks in winter, but do you know why they are called "holy birds"? Because their corpses do not decompose, but remain incorrupt, like relics, for 20 years. There is a simple explanation for this phenomenon. The bird in its lifetime was so sticky with resinous substances from conifers that during its life it turned into a kind of mummy.
