When birds do sing, sweet lovers love the spring

We've been in this house, feeding birds at the back gallery (deck, porch, verandah. . .) for twenty-two years. This is the first year we've seen an irruption of Red crossbills at our house. And it's been every day for weeks now.

I'm amazed at how different almost every crossbill is. Mind you, this *is* the season of the switch -- spring-time, hey ring-a-ding-ding-time -- as they brighten up and change colours. That only adds to their variety.

The crossbills are fairly tame. This feeder is about a metre from the rail of the gallery, and I was at the rail, so the camera was not much more than a metre from the bird when I took this picture.