I wanted to return to Hemsted especially to see the parrot crossbills to which I only had a quick view last week. I have not been out the last few days, what with looking after the twins for two days and a bit of man flu plus all the rain so today was just what I needed. I was surprised to see they still attracted crowds of people although when I arrived there was nothing much to see but finally the two-barred appeared back towards the road but it never came to the oak tree, plenty of commons though.
Common Crossbill
I met plenty of the Kent birders inc. Mark Tomlins, Grant Demar, Jerry Warne, Rick Smith, Marc Heath, Derek Smith, hope none of you should have been at work! There was a flock of about 20 commons which at one point landed in one of the small pines allowing a group shot.
Common Crossbill
Not much happened for a couple of hours around lunchtime, I moved around to the back of the track with a few others to get closer to the large tree they seemed to often use. From here I got a few views of the odd parrot amongst the commons, finally getting a shot albeit not very good due to the distance. This shot was cropped to just over to 700 pix across.
Parrot Crossbill
Added this highly cropped photo to show the bill which does not appear crossed like the common crossbill, seemed pretty straight on this individual as in some other photos.
3 comments:
Nice shot Mike, shows the features well in this shot.
Some great shots Mike well worth the trip.
Nice read and shots Mike
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