Loxia leucoptera
Silhouette: Emma Hughes · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The two-barred crossbill or white-winged crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. It breeds in the coniferous forests of North America and the Palearctic. The two-barred crossbill was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the crossbills in the genus Loxia and coined the binomial name Loxia leucoptera. Gmelin specified the locality as Hudson Bay and New York. The specific epithet leucoptera is from Ancient Greek leukopteros meaning "white-winged" (leukos means "white" and pteron means "wing"). Gmelin based his account on the "white winged crossbill" that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume work A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had examined a specimen in the Leverian Museum in London.
Two subspecies are recognised: Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wrangell-St. Elias National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Denali National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | Kluane National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 4 | Cape Breton Highlands National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 5 | Banff National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 6 | Jasper National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 7 | Gros Morne National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 8 | Riding Mountain National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 9 | Glacier National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 10 | Katmai National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 11 | Acadia National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 12 | Kenai Fjords National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 13 | Elk Island National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 14 | Grand Teton National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 15 | Great Bear Rainforest | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 16 | Yellowstone National Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 17 | Point Pelee National Park | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anchorage | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Novosibirsk | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 3 | Edmonton | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 4 | Saint Petersburg | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 5 | Moscow | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 6 | Calgary | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 7 | Beijing | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 8 | Montreal | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 9 | Helsinki | 🇫🇮 Finland | |
| 10 | Toronto | 🇨🇦 Canada |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a White-winged Crossbill sighting in Riding Mountain National Park on a given day, based on 65 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 116th most-seen of the 181 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a White-winged Crossbill in Riding Mountain National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March, May–June and September–October, the lowest months. That is one of Riding Mountain National Park's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain against 100 mm in June.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most White-winged Crossbill sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
8th of 17
Of the 17 parks where we can rate White-winged Crossbill sightings, Riding Mountain National Park ranks 8th at about 10%. The best odds are in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (United States, about 40%), Denali National Park (United States, about 30%) and Kluane National Park (Canada, about 30%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the White-winged Crossbill is recorded against all the birds logged in Riding Mountain National Park (65 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
