About ten to fourteen days ago, this immature male red crossbill showed up in my backyard. He had trouble flying and was only able to fly a few feet at time, never going far from my feeders. I checked him out by photographing him at different angles and couldn’t see any injuries so I was a little baffled by what was wrong. He would hop from branch to branch in order to get high enough to glide over to the next tree away from the feeders where he would spend the night. When in the feeder, he would chase off any larger birds that tried to feed, so he certainly had spirit. I don’t have a lot of crossbills this winter and he is certainly the brightest yellow one we’ve had. After watching for a week or so, all the crossbills disappeared for several days, including this one. Late yesterday afternoon, two males came back in. Shortly after, he flew in as well, fed with them, and then flew off into the forest as strong as ever. No idea what happened, but I was glad to see he recovered and was healthy again.