More Waxwings 1st February 2024

Birders are by nature obsessives so it will come as no surprise that I have made yet another excursion to take advantage of this exceptional Waxwing winter of irruption. This time I travelled to Longlevens in the City of Gloucester where fourteen are periodically guzzling pinkish white berries from an ornamental rowan tree situated in a suburban front garden on the city's outskirts. 

The birds spent most of their time perched, in typical fashion, high in a very tall tree a short flying distance from the berry tree in question and about every half hour they would fly down to the berry tree and frantically gobble as many berries as they could before flying at great speed back to their favourite tall tree.They rarely lingered in the berry tree for more than a few minutes so you had to be quick and lucky if you wanted to get anything resembling a decent photo of them.

The berry tree did not help aesthetically as it was a complex mix of berries, stems, twigs and branches so getting a decent shot was often not possible. Only if the Waxwings perched openly, such as on a television aerial or telephone wire prior to descending to feed on the berries did you have a chance to get an unobstructed image.

In the end I grew weary of attempting to get that classic side on pose of a Waxwing. I have plenty already, so opted for something more avant garde. 

My alternative was to try and get action shots of the birds as they fed on the berries. I noticed that when the birds settled in the rowan tree they seemed to show a preference for those berries at the extremity of the branches, presumably as that was where the largest bunches remained, most of the other more accessible berries in the centre of the tree already having been plundered. A Waxwing would land on a small branch and then tentatively edge right to the end of the branch where the berries hung in clusters from thin red stems.

The weight of the bird would cause the berries to droop even more than normal on their stems so the Waxwing then had to acrobatically contort itself, completely inverting its body at times, to gobble the berries whilst hanging downwards.

It made for some interesting and to my mind less usual images of these birds. It also highlighted some of the Waxwings behaviour you would not necessarily notice.For instance when they fly off they sometimes have a berry still firmly clasped in their bill.

I spent a couple of hours here, not entirely comfortable at standing by a front garden in a busy housing estate but the residents remained sanguine about my mild intrusion so hopefully no offence was caused.

Waxwings often move on well before a source of berries is depleted. It seems to be in their genetic nature to continue roving even when there are plenty of berries available where they already are.

Let's hope they remain for a little longer.