White-winged Crossbill

These are such colourful birds - at least the males are. The females are a greenish yellow, but still beautiful. Their bills are crossed, to enable them to get the seeds out of the cones. They tend to land high up in these tall trees, hence a zoomed and heavily cropped image. Taken on 4 January 2013, when a small group of four of us took part in the annual Horseshoe Canyon/Drumheller Christmas Bird Count, east of Calgary, in the Badlands of Alberta.