I’ve only twice before recorded waxwing (sidensvans) in March here. They arrive in large numbers in October and November and are usually gone again by the end of January. However, this year small numbers have stayed on. Nice then to be able to film this one in bright sunshine this morning. It had been eating from an apple I’d put out.
Tag Archives: Waxwing
Yew for redwing
Norsk: Svarttrost, gråtrost, rødstrupe, munk, sidensvans og rødvingetrost!
210 Waxwings
Snow birds
Even waxwings (sidensvans) are attracted although they don’t stay for long.
Synchronised waxwings
I stopped the film and took the following screen grab and noticed that a couple of the birds were in gliding flight, looking like bullets:
I took another screen grab one second on and to my astonishment almost all the birds had synchronised into gliding flight:
Apparently, this synchronisation of waxwing flocks is well known ( similar to starlings). Have a look in slow motion:
Waxwings on yew
Part of a flock of some 220 waxwings, here in a neighbour’s tree this morning!
Rowans and thrushes
RIP Bombycilla garrulus
I can only remember once finding a dead waxwing next to the house (and on occason there can be up to 1,000 of them in the garden).
Waxwings on apples
Bombycilla garrulus and Coccothraustes coccothraustes
I try to “grow” as much food for birds as possible in my garden. This includes leaving some fruit, planting various species of rowan (Sorbus), not tidying the garden until late winter, so that, for example, seed of nettles and burdock is available for finches. I also don’t feed the birds with bought in sunflower seeds until it gets properly cold, until then there’s plenty of natural food available. There’s nowadays a large acreage put down to non-organic production of bird seed in other countries which is certainly detrimental to birdlife in those countries and there is evidence that providing bird seed during the breeding season can have a negative effect on some species! So, is feeding birds a good thing or just for our entertainment? A bit of both I think!
- Hawfinch and waxwings towards the end…taken from the living room /office!
2. Waxwing on apple. It was a bad rowan berry year and there are unusually few waxwings around (perhaps good news for an invasion further south, e.g., in the UK?). This is one of the apples I left for the birds…the video was taken from the living room!