Wildlife
Common crossbills have a distinctively shaped beak that gives them their name. Folklore tells that the crossbill got its beak when it attempted to remove the nails from Jesus' hands and feet as he was crucified on the cross. The crossed bill enables crossbills to pull pine seeds out of pine cones.
Did you know?
The peculiar beak allows the crossbill to exploit a niche not used by other seed-eating birds.
All you need to know about British birds.
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Beak breakers
Pine cones come in different shapes and sizes, as do the beaks needed to open them.
Pine cones come in different shapes and sizes, as do the beaks needed to open them.
Pine giants
Huge Scots pine trees starts life as fragile, tiny seeds.
Huge Scots pine trees starts life as fragile, tiny seeds.
Rearing young crossbills
Why would a bird choose to raise its young in the depths of winter?
Why would a bird choose to raise its young in the depths of winter?
Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder.
The Common crossbill can be found in a number of locations including: Asia, China, Europe, North America, Russia, United Kingdom. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Common crossbill distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Least Concern
Year assessed: 2009
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
The Red Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae, also known as the Common Crossbill in Eurasia. Crossbills have distinctive mandibles, crossed at the tips, which enable them to extract seeds from conifer cones and other fruits.
Adults are often brightly coloured, with red or orange males and green or yellow females, but there is wide variation in colour, beak size and shape, and call types, leading to different classifications of variants, some of which have been named as subspecies.
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Helpless young
Tree dweller
Adapted to flying
Acoustic communication
Herbivorous
Monogamous
Moulting
Nomadic
Egg layer
Parental investment
Polymorphism
Social
Sexual dimorphism
Torpor
Visual communication