Clowes crossbills

Somewhere up there, somewhere in this large wood........ there are crossbills. Dylan kindly passed on the info, but there are plenty of trees to check out.
Aha! I spy two - a male and a female - distant but indubitably crossbills.
My camera is can't cope with small birds at great distances, no matter how good the light, but at least it was good to see these irritatingly elusive birds. Please refer to another Steve's site to see what I failed to catch.
They stayed for a few minutes, until some loud dogwalkers spooked them....and when they flew they were joined by 10 others that had presumably been feeding just below, with the top male standing sentinel.
Clowes Wood is mixed deciduous and coniferous, giving a rich variety of habitats that were being well exploited in the sunshine today - beauty was everywhere I turned.

Norway Maple buds exploding while you look at them, being picked over by hordes of wood ants.

Plenty of peacocks, and a few commas and small whites

A good range of catkins - is this grey poplar, perhaps?

A few butcher's broom plants were found, with some tiny flowers

Bee-fly

A lovely morning, with time to spare to enjoy it.