Pine crossbills

Desmond Nethersole-Thompson

"From mid-January to mid-April 1935 I was off on my dilapidated bicycle, but how different Speyside was from Breckland. In late February many crossbills were still in flocks; I had to walk and cycle for many miles before finding my first nest in the last week of March, when I located a small breeding group in a plantation of old pines close to a keeper's cottage. Thenceforward, until 1942, I followed the crossbills and slowly began to understand a little about them. At first everything was gloriously new. I watched my crossbills mating and discovered how subtly a winter flock changed to a mating party and from a mating party to mated groups. I studied patterns of territory and dispersion and watched how hens built their nests. I sat under trees and I climbed to nests. I watched hens brooding and saw cocks feeding them. One hen pitched on my fingers and allowed me to catch her. I still...

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