PARROT CROSSBILLS AT WAVENEY FOREST

   Today I popped over to Waveney forest which is a bit of a misnomer now that the trees are being rapidly felled to try and find the Parrot Crossbills. Several birds have been reported recently and with the sun shining brightly I was hopeful of seeing them. Moving south from the car park I quickly found two other people who had seen the birds and were waiting for them to return near a pile of logs that had recently been cut down and I had only been with them for a few minutes when the Crossbills flew in calling to each other constantly. These calls stopped when the birds alighted in the tops of some pines and began to feed out of range of effective photography. Eventually after an hour or so the birds began to move lower down on the pine trees and also onto a larch coming closer and closer to us allowing very good views. After a while they flew off to a nearby pine top and the other people left me to it but even though I hung around for another hour or two the birds never came close again and when a few other bird watchers turned up I decided to call it a day and returned to the car. I have included several photos here some of which are better and clearer than others but they are all of male birds as the females didn't seem to be so keen on approaching closely.