Two-Bar Or Not Two-Bar

Father's day weekend means lots of plans made. And with poor weather inbound I planned to combine some birding with being in the city.

Myself and Lyra made for the Helsinki shoreline, where some Two-Barred Crossbills had been hanging out.

With Ireland's first Two-Barred warbler having shown up in shady circumstances involving Kieran Grace, Jim Dowdall and Killian Mullarney (Shame Shame Shame), it's worth remembering there's only one Two-Barred worth mentioning 😈.

The usual larches were holding a mixed flock of Crossbills and it was surprisingly difficult to sift through the birds in quite dense trees.

First up was this Wing-Barred Common Crossbill. Birds like this can be eye catching, and can fool you temporarily when tumbling about at the tops of trees.

Note the colour bleeding into the wing bars.

Asymmetric tertial tips, with colour bleeding along feather fringe.

Fairly chunky structure

Usually when I visit this site it's in Sub-Zero temperatures. This weekend, after a snow thaw, there were plenty of puddles allowing the Crossbills to come down and drink. 

A single bird up the back popped up and revealed itself to be a female Parrot Crossbill before diving back into the center, but then a young male Two-Barred came out low and front.

Two-Barred Crossbill - first year male

Note the neatly and completely fringed uppertail coverts

Two-Barred Crossbill - 1st winter male. Note the clean white wingbars, and broader, more symmetric tertial tips.

This beast then turned up, as is typical for any city visit.

Goshawk - Juvenile. This monster put up all the Crossbills, meaning it gave me a chance to sort through them afresh.

I then picked up several juv and female types, with seemingly 5-6 birds in total.

It can be difficult to call them at times, when the flank feathering is blown up and covering the wings.

There's something quite cold about juv Two-Barred plumage.

Moult in greater and median coverts

A bit of green starting to come through in the plumage, suggesting female.

I settled on 6 individuals, but could have been 7. Was great to listen to the variety of calls from these. Most frequently they gave the Common like call, but notably different, like saying the "chip" call through closed teeth. This was the call myself and Rob Vaughan heard in Baltimore.

The birds also gave a wonderful little chittering call whilst feeding which I had never heard before.

Thirdly, and the least frequently given, was the tooting call, similar to northern Bullfinch but more distinct and metallic. Even when flushed by Goshawk they did not give the toot call much.

This older female was present too, which was exceptionally tame.

Note the uppertail coverts. A bit tatty in the wings.

Broader, more obvious wing bars. I find the green of female Two-Barred to be different to common in my opinion, a mossier, yellower tone, perhaps more adapted to the colour of winter Larch.

Adult Male Two-Barred Crossbill.

Beautiful colour on the male, though he never really came low down. I find the red of adults can change dramatically in tone depending on lighting. Sometimes pink, sometimes more scarlet.

A very enjoyable 3 Crossbill species experience and, as usual, enjoyable urban birding in Helsinki.