Up With the Larks

What a day!  Another horrendously early start, out the door before 6am.  What drove us to do that... well I do know.  There was a big days birding planned.
 The first stop of the morning was at Cavenham Heath.  It was a bit slow to begin with, but after an hour or so things picked up with a pair of Woodlark in one of the fields.  They really do have remarkable camouflage and the dull early morning light made spotting them no easier, a nice species to get the morning started though.  What really got the day started however were three Stone Curlews, like the Woodlark sitting cryptically camouflaged and at some distance.  Through the scope though they looked fantastic, a truly remarkable looking species.

Time pressed, so it was then on to Lynford Arboretum to look for the Two-Barred Crossbills, and hopefully not the strange, presumed hybrid bird I had here last year.  The car park here was surprisingly good, with a pair of Firecrest and a Marsh Tit.
  There were a few Crossbills around to start with, and over the next hour we saw up to about eight birds, but despite the best efforts of several birders no wing bars could be found on any of them.  The hours ticked by and still no barred Crossbills...  After nearly three hours it was time to go.  We stopped at a puddle the Crossbills drink from on the way back, then things began to get interesting.  There was a Crossbill... with wingbars.  The excitement built, but as soon as I saw it I realised that this was almost certainly the dubious hybrid... for the second time!  It could be a 1st year bird with poorly developed feathers, but impossible to tell.  After all the time put in this was ever so slightly dispiriting.
 It's a good thing we waited longer as five minutes later the female Two bar turned up, shortly followed by the male. Wow. Amazing birds, worth every hour.  How happy it made me to see such large wing bars...

Still buzzing about the Two bars we then headed to Lakenheath Fen, where we saw remarkably little.  Well we did see a Crane.... so I certainly won't complain, despite there only being brief flight views.  Another amazing bird to top off an amazing day.

Tick, Tick, err Tick?

On Friday I was attending an awards ceremony in Suffolk -more of that later- so as I was in the area it would have been rude not to go birding wouldn't it?  And I must confess, it has to be one of the best days birding I've had for a fair while.  Just on the drive to Suffolk I had eight Kestrels, and a Buzzard, so not all that boring a way to spend an hour and a half.  And upon arriving at Lynford Arboretum -our location of choice- I heard my first ever Crossbills flying over.  Ten Minutes later a flock of five landed in a tree, as you may know Crossbill is, if you like, my bogey bird.  I can't believe it took so long to see one.  It did however make seeing one all that more rewarding, and to say the least enjoyable.
 The only problem was, winter light doesn't last long, so I didn't have much time to try and get close to them.  As a result this poor record shot was as much as I could manage.

 A walk to find the Hawfinches here was a waste of time, but when we got back to the area with the Crossbills someone got us on to a pair of these not so small beauties.  Despite the incredibly distant views, to see these chunky finches was incredible, something I doubted I would do for quite a while.  And a second life tick to the day was much appreciated.

 However there is more to this story, it took a rather confusing turn when I saw this.  To an un-trained eye, like mine one would assume this a Two-barred Crossbill.  If only...

You see it's not all as simple as you would think at first glance, and if you have an experienced pair of eyes for this kind of thing you would know that this isn't a Two-Bar Crossbill.  The first reason it isn't is because, well I saw it.  And the chances of life-ticking Common and Two-bar Crossbill in the same day is... for the most part slim.
 As you can probably guess the key feature in a Two-Bar is its wing-bars.  On this individual they were quite dull, not the 'stand out' bars a true Two-Bar would have.  The colour of the bird was also a bit of a give away, not quite the pink-red that it should be, and also the size, just a little bit too big.  I'm sure that there are probably various little details that I forgot to mention, but they're the keys things, I think
 So after much discussion the verdict was that this was probably some sort of hybrid.  Could I tick it?  Certainly not.  However it was a rather interesting bird, and it got the mind working so it doesn't sit all that badly with me.  Although it did lie about its identity....