Thursday 7 April 2011

Crossbills

The day was spent by The Shunan mending the track. In the morning just a distant Hen Harrier was seen. In the afternoon in increasing WSW wind I took the car down so I had a place to shelter. Drinking my tea mid-afternoon I got on to four chunky passerines heading my way. As luck would have it they landed briefly in the near end of the hawthorn hedge, about 15m from the car. Crossbills, excellent! Two brilliant males, one seemed to show a fair bit of white in the wing (but I wasn't thinking 2Bxb). In a moment they were up and away again, battling the wind. A new tetrad tick and brilliant colour on a grey afternoon. Minutes later everything went up on The Shunan and a Bonxie was cruising for a bruising, scaring everything half to death.

Earlier on 79 Pink-feet had headed north, struggling against the wind initially and but giving in to it.

Progress on the potholes is good but there is still a huge mountain of stuff to clear, couple more days should do it though.

2 comments:

dafi said...

Well done, thats a serious amount of holes!!

Alastair said...

My back and arms are complaining, weather is very grim this morn aaaggghhhh, more to do!