Paxo Turns Sage

Last night I happened to catch the close of BBC’s Newsnight and was surprised and rather delighted, to hear Jeremy Paxman talking about the current UK Waxwing irruption. Indeed according to Mr P these delightful little birds can currently be found en masse from Aberdeen to Exeter. The presenter went on to dispel the “old wives tale” that the arrival of large numbers of Waxwings to Britain indicated the coming of a harsh winter, “They’re just hungry” he explained. The programme ended with a lovely collection of Waxwing photographs accompanied by a festive tune – I think this must be the first time I have ever finished watching Newsnight with a happy smile on my face and a warm glow inside.

Sadly of course, it does tend to suggest, that given the accuracy of Newsnight’s reporting over the last year, we should be stocking the larders and dusting off the snowshoes, in preparation for the imminent arrival of the next ice age. More reasoned observers, have reported that the bumper UK crop of Waxwings is in inverse proportion to this year’s poor store of berries in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, from whence these birds have relocated.

 

 

I do have one small rankle with the BBC’s report, which implies, that to see these sky darkening flocks of Bombycilla garrulus, all one has to do is open the front door and look for the nearest tree. As someone who has been desperately trying to spot (and photograph) even a single waxwing over many winters, and to have finally succeeded this week – amid much self congratulating and back slapping – I feel a bit peeved that the BBC should suggest the completion of my goal, was the equivalent of popping down the shops to buy a newspaper. Pee on your own fireworks if you wish Mr Paxman, but for now my parade stays rain free.

I must confess that the actual finding of the Waxwings, was not without a small degree of soul searching (not to mention industrial estate searching) on my part. In previous posts I have indicated that, whilst I respect everyone’s right to adopt and pursue their pastimes as they please, twitching is definitely not for me.






Favourite foods: Berries, particularly rowan and hawthorn,
but also cotoneaster and rose

As an (rather lapsed) angler I always felt that the fly fisher’s motto, Piscator non solum piscatur (broadly translated as, there’s more to fishing than catching fish) rather nicely summed up my approach. For me the “being there”, the scenery and the joy of nature were by far the bigger picture. So then, to be checking e mailed sighting reports and then hot footing (hot twassering?) to various rather unattractive localities, in the hope of catching up with these vagrant migrants, ran somewhat against the grain.

Nonetheless, needs must when the devil drives, and so to Denbigh Industrial Estate to find the “Bletchley Waxwings”.

 

 

As an aside I have just finished reading “Enigma” – the spy novel based on the code breakers at Bletchley Park – and which beautifully captures the period and life in and around the Bletchley area during the second world war. “Lord and Lady Waxwing, Inspector Fieldfare is here to see you”. I move on.

 

 

My first visit to Denbigh had blanked, but I returned again on Saturday morning and initially again couldn’t spot the Waxers. Being Saturday, the estate was much quieter than my previous visit and so I toured the site in the hope of finding them. Eventually I spotted a flock of around fifty birds moving from tree to tree, and there, at the corner of First and Third Avenues (now it sounds like I’ve started a Philip Marlowe novel) I found them, feasting on berries and trilling in the sharp bright air. Oh joy unconfined - and it wasn’t even a bit like twitching, was it?