Saturday 15th January 2011 - more MK Waxwings

Its been a fairly uneventful week birding wise, 30 Waxwings in the yard on Monday and a Barn Owl seen in the headlights whilst travelling along the A45 east of Northampton on Tuesday night had been the highlights up until today. Reports have been coming in about a flock of Waxies in Central Milton Keynes over the last few days so I decided to take a look. I arrived at Lloyds Court at approx 1445 and was welcomed by three trees full of Waxwings, I estimated about 70 birds in total, with quite a few people around enjoying them. A few flew off shortly afterwards which left 54 feeding on the berries on the side of the road. A scan through these produced a colour ringed bird with a yellow band on it's right leg, but I couldn't make out any of the other rings unfortunately due to bad light and the fact that it wouldn't stay still long enough to get a better view. Over the next 30 minutes birds came in and gradually the flock got larger. They seemed almost tame and a young couple even approached a group feeding on the berries and took a photo from about 5 feet away and even then they still didn't seem too bothered. I went closer to some of the trees and met a local birder in the name of Si, and watched as even more Waxwings came in to join the now large flock. The views of these birds was simply incredible, as we stood underneath a tree watching them above our heads probably just 8 - 10 feet above us. The details of the plumage seen even without binoculars was breathtaking and the noise was awesome. Then they all flew into the group of trees in the middle of the car park so a quick count was made, Si got to 216 and I got to 223- so we split the difference and agreed 220 Waxwings!!

It doesn't matter how many of these cracking birds I see I just can't get enough of them, and each flock fills me with the same excitment as seeing my first. A good afternoon indeed!!