Lockdown Diary: Wednesday 22.7.20

This evening, I was back once more looking for Crossbills at Southey Wood, this time with my son Eddie, who has only seen Crossbills on Bird Watching reader holidays to the Grant Arms Hotel, in the Highlands, and then reasonably distantly. There were two important developments, this evening. Firstly, the numbers have swollen to 30-35 birds. Secondly, I briefly saw an individual (a youngster) with obvious transverse pale wing-bars. Now, this can mean one of two things: an odd variant of Crossbill or a Two-barred crossbill (a very rare bird which I have never seen!). Unfortunately, before I could nail the ID, photograph the bird or scope it, it had moved on… One for another day