Forest of Dean again

After a non birding weekend except for the brief inclusion of a couple of Ring Necked Parakeets, I decided to take today off and go birding again in the Forest Of Dean, this time with my friend, Mike.

We arrived at the Forest around about 10:30am, parked up and started to walk up the path to Kensley Lodge (near Woorgreens Lake).  As we rounded the bend by the Lodge, I immediately got onto a Hawfinch sitting in the left hand side of a Fir tree.  Unfortunately, Mike did not spot it but we hung around for 15 minutes and soon found 5+ birds scattered around in different trees in the area.  We managed to scope a couple of the birds which gave Mike great views of his first ever Hawfinches.  Also in the area were several Brambling, Redwings, Blackbirds and Siskins.

We decided to continue along the path to Crabtree Hill (where I had seen the Two Barred Crossbills a couple of weeks previously) and then out onto the clearfell but despite searching and hanging around for quite a long time, we could not find the long staying Great Grey Shrike.  We saw some Common Crossbills flying overhead and also heard a Two Barred Crossbill but did not see it.

As it was now past midday, we headed back to the car, and after lunch, decided to retrace our footsteps for another try for the Shrike and the Two Barred Crossbills.  As we were heading up the path, we came across a local birder giving directions to some other birders as to where he had seen the Crossbills earlier.  As the location was a drive away, we decided to head back to the car and the local birder very kindly let us follow him to the destination.  A quick walk up a hill brought us to some larches with a good crop of pine cones but despite an extensive search, we just could not find the Two Barred Crossbills.  We did however obtain good views of Common Crossbills, several Nuthatch, Treecreepers and a Great Spotted Woodpecker.