Red Crossbills on the Farm!!

This morning a flock of about 30 Red Crossbills came flying and chattering in to the big fir near our house. They were so chattery when they flew I thought they were siskins. I grabbed my camera and took lots of blurry, far-up-in-the-tree photos. When I looked at what I'd taken, I saw that they were Red Crossbills. We have had them here before but only in small numbers yip yipping from one tree to another in the woods and then disappearing. This was my first opportunity to photograph them. The photos are not good, but diagnostic. After several minutes of feeding in the cones, always with the same male sitting on top keeping guard, they flew off toward the distant woods. I put a few of the photos on my bird list blog. Here are more. I love Crossbills!

Guard bird on top of tree