...well...an away couple of hours....
Last Friday I finally....finally...managed to get a spare couple of hours together to head out to Hemsted Forest to look for the Crossbill trio.....
Not really knowing where to go (and yes, i've been told where to go a million times!!) I emailed Robin Mace to see if he could get me some information. It turned out he had recently been on a trip to the same spot himself recently but failed to get all three. He kindly supplied a Streetmap reference of the spot and a brief set of instructions.
So, with instructions in hand, well, on my phone (modern technology is, mostly, wonderful, I headed out.
I arrived at what I guessed was the scene of the crime, several other cars were there ( a bit of a give-away)...and another birder with binoculars definitely helped to I.D. the spot.
I headed across the clearing and found two birders on site with cameras and lenses that just about fitted in the clearing!....though they did complain about one having left his glasses in the car and the other left his binoculars in the car....im not saying a word (yes i will actually)....look, I used to digiscope and kept reading that it wasnt all about taking photos as people seemed to be in it for taking the photo and not the birding and this scene I came across definitely fitted that bill bang on....another guy turned up with a similar set up and two of them endlessly talked about either photos they had taken or the details of ISO et al and not really about birds at all....
Anyway, boring bit over, Crossbills turned up....two....after a while they came back....after another while a flock of ten or so came....I was quite enjoying this alone when a flock turned up with Two-barred Crossbill. Fab.....(though from the photographers this wasnt good enough of course, clouds had rolled in spoiling the light....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....and the bird was sitting behind some twigs....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....so much for birding)....
Within another ten minutes, after what was possibly a distant view, a smaller flock brought with it the Parrot Crossbill.
Not bad, an hour on site, 3 excellent birds....
Amusing but true comments re. the photographers, clearly there at least two of us with the same opinion of these people. The conversations re. ISO, twigs, etc. also appear on many blogs these days, as you say zzzzzzzzzzzzz
ReplyDelete