Waxwings

It's not that I'm a twitcher but I do like to know the identities of the birds I see so, having had a brief glimpse the other day only of only the second waxwing I've seen in Scotland, I wanted to find out if it was the same species as the much more numerous waxwings I've seen in comparatively much shorter times I've spent in Canada.

A little research tells me that there is only one species of waxwing in Europe, and that's Bombycilla garrulus, the Bohemian waxwing. However, it is also distributed across much of North America whereas....

....the cedar waxwing, Bombycilla cedrorum, is only found in North America. 

The two species are difficult to tell apart. The upper picture is of the lone waxwing we spotted some years ago in Kilchoan, so tame that I was able almost to walk right up to it to take the picture. The lower picture is of one of a small flock which we watched on the shores of Lake Okanagan in British Columbia, and I'm almost certain that it's a cedar waxwing as it has a much yellower tummy. Whichever species they are, they're stunningly beautiful birds.

The only other waxwing species is the Japanese variety, which is confined to eastern Russia, Japan and China and is, unlike the others, under some threat.

Armed with this information, I'm hoping this is going to be a bumper year here for Bohemian waxwings.