Parrot Crossbills a couple of years ago

One of ten Parrot crossbills on South Heath during a bird count a couple of years ago.  Photo from Keith.

Yes, the bill and neck are large, but it was the feeding behaviour that struck us as definitive.  There is no agile balancing and tweaking at the cone.  The stem of the cone is grabbed, ripped off the tree, moved to an anvil on a branch and attacked.  Brutal.

It was the dropping of discarded cones under the tree, rather than the dropping of little bits of cone and seed wings, that was noticeable.

And these birds seem to totally ignore us humans, and we could walk quite happily under the tree that they were in, and they would not take the slightest notice.

They were just hidden from sight from the birdwatchers that were at the roller stand, by the slope falling away as it got to the ditch and bank.  We did not bother to mention the birds to them, and they would see them later.

They stayed together as a neat group of 10, and that alone probably was enough to identify them.

I am sure that plenty of other isolated birds, would have been misidentified during the weeks that they stayed with us.


Martin