Crossbills in North Wales

Freezing cold temperatures and a sunny blue sky meant that I just had to go birding today and Crossbills were to be the main target bird. So I set the alarm for 7:00am and it was off to an undisclosed location in North Wales at the crack of 9:30am.

The male birds are a stunning red-orange colour and the females are a more drab yellowy-grey. But both have these extraordinary and very distinctive bills with crossed mandibles which are specially adapted for extracting the seeds from conifer pine cones.