Posted on behalf of Steve Hersey.  The sighting was apparently today.

Kurt Schwarz
HowCo
goawaybird at verizon dot net

Had a very unexpected and very welcome swarm of White-winged Crossbills invade my neighborhood in DC this morning.  We live across from the Zoo and were walking to our car at 8:15am when approx. 20 Crossbills took over a couple conifers in front of 2801 Cortland Place, NW (the neighborhood behind 3100 Connecticut Ave.).

It is a dark, gloomy morning so the light was horrible, but the birds were unmistakable. Black wings with two nice large wingbars, and frantically tearing into the cones.  We didn't have our binoculars with us so we couldn't enjoy seeing their famous bills.  And couldn't find any colored males in the two minutes we had to view them. And then, as crossbills do, they were gone.  I circled the neighborhood a couple times with no luck.  I'm going to check again this evening and again tomorrow morning - hopefully they will reappear!

Cheers,
Steve Hersey
Washington, DC