At last - my long crossbill drought is over! Last year was the first since we came to live here that I've failed to see any; and, hoping to put that right this year, I drove north and east to check out some previously reliable locations. A short walk near Loch Craggie brought nothing but a distant buzzard, and I drove back to another forestry road to have lunch. Naturally, just when I had my hand in the crisp packet and a mouthful of apple (post-Christmas frugality) two chunky birds were spotted flying over the conifers on the far side of the road, and I reached for the bins with sticky fingers. A couple of faint "gip" calls confirmed these were indeed crossbills.
If I got out, I reasoned, I would probably drive the birds away; so I manoeuvred the car until it stood across the entrance to the forestry road (keeping an eye out meanwhile for any timber lorries) and got some distant shots. I think the first picture shows a female, and the second a male.
A red male did a couple of circuits over the conifers and then came flying towards me; it passed over the car, and I assumed it was carrying on across the moorland to another belt of trees. But some twittering close by made me look in my wing mirror - to see two birds in the small birch behind the car. I looked up and down the road again to check for timber trucks and realised with a little shock that the red male had landed on the road to the right - awkwardly, sort of behind me. It was soon joined by a second bird (which I believe was also a male), and they proceeded to extract something from the surface.
Unfortunately an approaching vehicle put the crossbills to flight, and as the light was rapidly deteriorating I called it a day and drove home. But first I got out and walked over to roughly where the birds had landed, to see if I could work out what the attraction was.
Water? Crossbills come down to drink; but the road was only damp, while nearby there were puddles, a wet ditch, and a river - so why not use those? Grit was another possibility but I couldn't see anything loose on the road. It was only when I googled about it that I learnt, from the website parquenacionalsierraguadarrama.es, that crossbills have been observed eating the salt put down on the roads in winter - with the result that many of these birds get run over. Of course - why didn't I think of salt? That would hardly be visible, and, as Greger pointed out later, it would have dissolved anyway. Not sure. Anyway, these two flew off smartly enough as the car approached so let's hope they won't meet the fate of the Spanish birds. Although it's single-track, this road tends to be a fast one as you can often see quite far ahead.
Apart from two ravens and the buzzard, the only other bird seen was a female goldeneye on Loch Borralan - another first for the year.
