Twitching and dipping out a Waxwing

Word on the birding street is that this winter is going to be bright for lovers of one of our winter visitors – the Waxwing, Bombycilla garrulus. This bird is more formally known as the Bohemian Waxwing as opposed to the American bird, the Cedar Waxwing, B. cedrorum. There were quite a few sightings early on in Scotland as these birds that spend the summer much further north than that began to head south. Waxwing, photographed in Newcastle Sightings in England have been on the rise as of late November, early December 2023. The nearest relatively large flock for me is in Norwich. Too far for me to make that trip just for the birds. However, word went out that a solitary bird was in trees next to the recreation ground in a village just up the road, Stretham. Usually, the flocks tend to congregate in places with large plantings of berry-laden trees, like rowans, such as supermarket car parks, transport hubs and service stations, as I’ve mentioned before. A Meadow Pipit in the Spring on Anglesey It wasn’t such a long twitch to head to Stretham from here to have a look for the bird. I scanned every tree in the vicinity, took a long walk around the village scouting out rowans and cherry trees to no avail. I didn’t see the Waxwing. I dipped out, as birders say (check out my tongue-in-beak birding glossary for definitions of such terms). However, I had the Merlin app running on my phone all the while for audio birding, you might say. There was the off-chance t...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Birds Source Type: blogs