Tuesday 23 November 2010

The Bohemian Chatterers come to Oxborough

Finally caught up with those pesky Waxwings yesterday. There have been hundreds of them all over the eastern UK since earlier this month (and single flocks of 1,000 or so in Scotland) but I'd managed to avoid them completely until lunchtime yesterday, when coming back from walking the Furry. Suddenly heard that characteristic high-pitched trilling sound and spotted a group of them perched at the top of the tree at the end of the drive. Got the bins on them just as they swooped off and headed towards Gooderstone.... Their call is as glamorous as their plumage. Meanwhile, a great-spotted woodpecker is in the garden on the fatballs as I bash this out, and a treecreeper has been coming regularly to the apple tree. Goldfinches on the nyger seed, as per, but no sign of the brambling that appeared fleetingly the other week. Good numbers of house sparrows though, which is reassuring.

A waxwing.... the Lady Gaga of the bird world.