Scandinavian Visitors

We had six visitors from Scandinavia in our garden today, much to the disgust of the local sparrow population as the nordics muscled in to the thicket which they use to watch out for their lunch, which we serve them pretty regularly at 1pm.

Of course the Scandinavians weren't interested in birdseed but in the local berries, and the sparrows' spot is heavy with rose hips, which the visitors began eating with gusto.

I love waxwings. They're a winter bird as far as this country is concerned, this little flock quite possibly blown across the North Sea by the predominant northeasterlies of the last couple of weeks. Certainly they're early, which may also indicate that Scandinavia has started winter early, and perhaps rather coldly. 

That we don't see waxwings very often probably adds to their excitement. The first I ever saw was in Kilchoan, just a single bird sitting in a hawthorn tree on a Christmas Day, and I simply couldn't believe how smart it was, nor that a bird in mid-winter could be so immaculately turned-out. Since then I've seen the other species of waxwing, the cedar waxwing, Bombycilla cedrorum, in quite large flocks in Canada, and....

....the British species, Bombycilla garrulus, the Bohemian waxwing, only once before, up the road from here at Golspie Tower Farm - again, a small group of half a dozen or so.

I don't know whether it was the sparrows, or me trying to get close for a better picture, but the waxwings retired to the big rowan tree where they spent some time pillaging the last of its berries before flying off.

I can't wait to see them again.