We went to Cairngorm last weekend, I had Friday off so after the obligatory shopping in Inverness we headed south and into the hills. Saturday dawned bright and still, ideal. Took a walk around the Loch Morlich area and soon bumped into a decent flock of Lindsay's faves. The birds were singing, to my ear the song was very different from the North Yorkshire birds I'm familiar with. Very hard to see detail in the field and I snapped away happily. To my eye these birds look like curvirostra but...
2 comments:
Hi Alistair,
Nice find in a great scenic location - snow capped mountains just now on that side of the 'gorms ?
What I can say with some certainty is that they are NOT Parrot Crossbills as the bills are too slim ! Scots Pine cones are now beginning to open and Parrots (and most Scottish) will be thinking about nesting, and will be using this food source. I have had Parrots and Scottish on Larch until late January in the past though. However, even if they are Commons, it would be interesting to get the call type since you have clearly had them on the Larch. I had Commons singing alongside singing Parrots in upper Deeside about a month ago. These birds were feeding on Norway Spruce and Scots Pine !
Cheers,
Lindsay
Lindsay,
Thanks for getting back to me.
Yes, snow capped hills.
This was a fair sized flock and it was difficult to pinpoint individual singing birds. Within the song there was a deep chup note regularly repeated. I suspected this was a different bird from the bird/s singing in the foreground. I'll put the movie clips in the side panel when I can get them uploaded, the recordings may well be too poor to be useful though, we'll see. Thanks for your help.
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