Friday 30th. November 2012

With the sunny weather continuing today , and with jobs lined up to do , I managed three visits to the Rowan tree today . The first just after 9 o'clock finding 28 Waxwings in the area but not yet feeding . A second visit shortly before lunch finding a few less , but making regular sortis to the berries and disappearing around midday . The third was about 1.30 , arriving to find about a dozen cold birders but no Waxwings . One of the birders was there when I left after the second visit , he told me that not a single one had been seen since I left . I got out the camera and tripod , got set up , and a matter of a couple of minutes later , in flew the flock , all 33 birds this time , and landed in trees close by . I won't mention what I got called by the other birders , but they were well pleased to see and photograph the birds . I'm posting a series of shots to try and give a flavour of the three visits .

31 of the flock , the other two were in a adjacent tree .

I had just focused on this bird , when it decided it was time for another meal .
As yesterday , there were cameo appearances by ,

the lone Redwing ,

just a single Fieldfare today ,

and the Mistle Thrush , that insisted on staying behind twigs .
We're coppicing for the next hedgelaying project and with the small amount of berries left , I think the flock will have moved on by Sunday , but they have been great to watch and photograph over the last two days . I didn't see a single specimen last Winter , but seem to have made up well and truly this one , and the best of it being , they were only five minutes away . The camera will probably happy if the flock moves on having worked very hard over the two days .