Had a very unexpected and very welcome swarm of White-winged Crossbills invade
my neighborhood in DC this morning. We live across from the Zoo and were
walking to our car at 8:15am when approx. 20 Crossbills took over a couple
conifers in front of 2801 Cortland Place, NW (the neighborhood behind 3100
Connecticut Ave.).
It is a dark, gloomy morning so the light was horrible, but the birds were
unmistakable. Black wings with two nice large wingbars, and frantically tearing
into the cones. We didn't have our binoculars with us so we couldn't enjoy
seeing their famous bills. And couldn't find any colored males in the two
minutes we had to view them. And then, as crossbills do, they were gone. I
circled the neighborhood a couple times with no luck. I'm going to check again
this evening and again tomorrow morning - hopefully they will reappear!
Cheers,
Steve Hersey
Washington, DC
