Wildlife Photographic Journals

The Invasion

Apologies for the slight lack of blog updates but it has been a busy time as Christmas descends upon us once more.

This winter has seen a huge invasion of Waxwings into the UK due to failure of the berry crop in more northerly latitudes. Literally thousands of birds have descended into the country and currently eating their way southward. I have quite a few waxwing photographs in my library already but they are such photogenic birds they are difficult to resist. The couple of sessions I have had with the birds to date have been brief and local.

Generally the are relatively easy birds to photograph as they are unwary and once they have targeted a particular berry tree will keep returning until every last berry has been consumed. I cannot imagine how many waxwings photographs have found their way on to photographers' memory cards in the UK over the last couple of months but it must run into literally hundreds of thousands. So here is my small contribution.

Typically a flock of Waxwings will find a tall tree to perch in, where they sit filling the air with their wonderful trilling calls, before descending as a group to their target berry tree. They will frenetically feed for a couple of minutes before flying back to the perching tree. The photography sessions therefore tend to have prolonged periods of quiet followed by intense bursts of activity as the birds descend to feed.

One small flock I found were feeding on to some very low Cotonester bushes, having stripped all the nearby rowan trees. It made a nice change to capture the birds with some nicely coloured backgrounds from the foliage behind, rather than against the sky.

As Waxwings really love eating Rowan berries they can often be found in urban areas and retail parks. Urban landscape architects seem to frequently include these trees in the designs to the benefit of both the birds and photographers. A group of photographers surrounding a tree in these  areas always draws in the curiosity of the general public.  These urban areas can also produce some interesting and rather strange coloured backgrounds to some of the photographs due to buildings in the background.

The purple of a Premier Inn sign.

or the red from a drive through KFC.

One of my friends has some interesting photographs of the birds against the orange background of the signs a B&Q DIY store. 

The birds should stay around until the spring before they make their way back northwards. So if you are out shopping over the Christmas break or visiting a retail park it is worth looking in the trees for these winter invaders. To me time spent with these birds in a car park is certainly much more interesting and rewarding than trying to grab a bargain in the post-Christmas sales.