Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus)
Parrot Crossbill (Loxia pytyopsittacus)
Male; brown body, light grey wings with black tips, and brown coverts. Unmarked light grey tail. Female; dark brown with light brown wing-coverts, crown and throat. Tail warm brown and unmarked. Juveniles dark, chocolate-brown, with light buff crown and throat. Young males may show characters of both sexes. Tail fairly long and unforked. Glides with wings raised in shallow V.
Sound:Call: A sharp "kwii-uuu" of about a seconds length, rapidly ascending in pitch, and ending on a falling tone.
Contact call:
Distribution:
Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)
Ecology:Birdlife ecology
Links:
Observation.org Latest observations
Image search Flickr NB! May give other species
CCSounds:Recorded by Jarek Matusiak,http://www.xeno-canto.org ,CC license
Very similar to Crossbill, but has thicker neck, bigger head, hardly any forehead and deeper bill. Upper mandible is more curved towards the tip than in Crossbill, and the lower mandible is s-shaped with a "bulge". The tip of the lower mandible is seldom visible from behind the upper. The chest is deeper, and many birds have a front heavy appearance. Adult males shows most distinct characters of the species, and other sexes/ages may be difficult to identify because of overlapping characters with Crossbill. Plumage similar to Crossbill, with dark wings and tail. Males with rufous red head and body, females green. Juveniles greyish green with streaking. Posture less erect than Crossbill, which, together with short tail, contributes to the front heavy impression.
Sound:Contact call similar to Crossbill's "chepp", but is on average deeper and lacks the "cut-off" ending of each call. In sum: Parrot Crossbill; hard attack, soft ending, Crossbill: softer attack, cut-off ending. The song consist of improvised, resonant twittering and series of contact calls with no apparent phrases. It is generally slower than in Crossbill, with marked pauses.
Song:
Distribution:
Xeno-canto: map
Ecology:Birdlife ecology
Links:
Observation.org Latest observations
Image search Flickr NB! May give other species
CCSounds:Recorded by Lauri Hallikainen http://www.xeno-canto.org/CC license