Waxwings

This winter has seen one of the biggest invasions of Waxwings into the UK. Tens of thousands of them have moved southwards through the country over the last couple of months. I couldn't resist going out and adding more images of these to my already large collection. I wanted to try and get shots of them on the ground, as this would be generally a little different from the majority of my photographs of them. At first light they were coming down onto the grass to feed on the berries they had displaced from the trees. The low sun and the frosty ground really enhanced them. I also took some large group shots of them in the trees and it only really leaves me with flight shots still to do.

Late Waxwings

I decided to shoot over to Wales for the last hour of sunlight this evening to try and get a few shots of three Waxwings that had been reported. I arrived to see them perched on an overhead wire above a couple of Cotoneaster bushes, amazingly for this time of year the bushes still held quite a lot of berries. They kept dropping down and feeding for a minute or two, before returning back to the wire.
The light wasn't brilliant and the pale coloured factory behind the bushes didn't help with the background, I managed a few half decent shots though. There was a female Blackcap and a Fieldfare in the bushes also, the latter was keeping well hidden though and wasn't photographable. A Pied Wagtail was an added bonus just as I was about to leave. Not a bad hours work for a spur of the moment session.

Waxwing

Blackcap (female)

Pied Wagtail

In Search of Berry Trees

Probably the most photographed species of bird in the UK this Winter will be the Waxwing.  Every year we have some over-wintering with us, usually in their hundreds, but this year has been exceptional with literally thousands arriving from Scandinavia and much earlier than usual.  Their main food is berries, the favourite being the fruit of the Rowan or Mountain Ash. Due to their early arrival there was still an abundance of berries and so they seemed to pick the ripest from each tree and then move on to a fresh source, eventually returning to the trees they had first visited some days later, presumably as the berries had ripened.

I had waited patiently for some to arrive locally and eventually a flew flocks were reported nearby.  The problem was that every time I went to photograph them they had moved on and I just seemed to be chasing around without any results.  After a few wasted trips I decided to head over to North Wales where several hundred Waxwings had been at a couple of sites regularly for a week or two.  It still took two days to get some decent shots and not exactly what I was after although  it was also nice to get some of them feeding on Hawthorn berries.

They are great fun to photograph and being so approachable makes all the difference, I'm sure that I'll be tempted to photograph some more before they head back to Scandinavia in early Spring.

Waxwings

With large numbers of Waxwings in the country at the moment I was in no rush to chase after them, preferring to wait until some turned up locally. A flock of 40 in Kelsall, Cheshire wasn't too far away so I made the trip, they had been there a few days and had already stripped several of the Rowan or (Mountain Ash) trees of berries, these are their preferred diet so I think they were getting ready to move on to find more fruit laden trees elsewhere.
Ideally for photography the birds need to be low down and feeding but this wasn't going to happen here, I took a few shots and decided that I would try and catch up with some more over the next few months.