Waxwing lyrical part 17 - absolutely trilling

When I got home last night I was pleased to find my telephoto lens had been delivered. It has been in for repair for the past two and half weeks and I didn't know if it would come back before the Waxwings moved on. I was also pleased to find out the garden had been full of Waxwings for much of the day. A friend told me that many of the birds weren't ringed so I decided to fit in a short ringing session this morning.

I was joined by John G shortly after 6am and we put up an 18ft net in the usual place. I had spent two hours putting out apples and berries last night so everything was set and we waited for the birds to arrive. Waxwings soon started to arrive and gather in the tall trees along the road. By 6:30 there were at least 63 and they dropped into the garden a few minutes later.

It was clear there were a lot of unringed birds in the flock and the first 4 birds caught were all unringed. The second net round produced another 3 new birds, a retrap and a British control (ringed elsewhere by others). I took the net down at 8:30 by which time we had caught 22 Waxwings of which 14 were new birds, only 7 were retraps and 1 was a control. This high proportion of new birds suggests there has been an influx of birds into the area.



A stonking adult male.

Some of the tail feathers were longer and had paler tips.

The waxy tips were very long.

This bird chose to bite me rather than go straight away on release.

John had to go to work but I had booked the day off so I would have a chance to try out my repaired telephoto lens. The garden was just buzzing and the Waxwings fed on and off for much of the rest of the day. While taking photographs I spotted and photographed the colour-ringed bird from Aberdeen and the Estonian ringed bird. I also photographed the Fieldfare that has been with us for almost two months now.

This female Fieldfare has been with us for almost 2 months now.

This Waxwing was ringed in Aberdeen and has been coming to the garden for a month now.

I did take quite a few photographs and the lens worked really well. Looking at the photographs it was obvious that there are still plenty of unringed birds in the flock. I spent another couple of hours putting out around 80 apple halves and some cotoneaster berries this evening in the hope of another trilling day tomorrow.

Waxwing lyrical part 16 - a month in.

Yesterday marked 4 weeks since the first Waxwing turned up in the garden. Around 30 were feeding there before I went to work but when I came home it was clear that far more apples had been eaten than I would expect from that number of birds. While I was up the ladder putting out more apples a neighbour told me that some birdwatchers had counted 53 late morning which made far more sense.

There was some interesting behaviour in the hour I was able to watch them first thing. One Waxwing guarded the apples in the main feeding tree. It flicked out its wings and chased off any others that tried to feed in the tree and effectively forced them to feed on the apples on the buddleias and other smaller trees. It uttered a warning 'seep' call that was not as thin as the call of Redwing. It even chased off other species including Blue Tit and Siskin. It moved around the tree feeding on different apples then would sit alert with crest raised and flick out its wings. I haven't seen anything like this before; the odd squabble and bit of sparring is common place in the feeding flocks but this was something very different. Unfortunately I couldn't stay and watch and headed off to work.

I was late home as I had to go and top up the feeders at one of my baited sites and buy some more apples. I also made a detour on my way home to prune some cotoneaster berries that I had spotted on route to a meeting earlier in the day. I have spent the best part of two hours putting apples and cotoneaster berries up in the garden along with a few in the trees across the road. Around 90 apple halves are now waiting for the Waxwings along with numerous sprays of berries. This should be more than enough to keep a flock of 50 or 60 well fed for another day.


The bird it all started with a month ago.

Waxwing lyrical part 15 - super Saturday

This post is a day late as I fell asleep last night with the laptop on my knee mid-post. The tiredness was in part due to another early start as I have not had a lie-in since the first Waxwing turned up in the garden over 3 weeks ago. The tiredness was also aided by a good few glasses of wine to celebrate another good Waxwing day and Wigan Athletic beating Everton to reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
 
Anyway I was up before first light yesterday to put some finishing touches to the presentation of some cotoneaster berries and apples as I was hoping to catch and ring a few more Waxwings. I had been following the weather forecast with great interest as I thought there may be a very brief weather window before the forecast cold easterly wind arrived in earnest. The problem was there could be some light rain but as it happened there was only the odd spot and conditions for mist-netting in the garden were near perfect.

I put up an 18ft net and waited to see what happened. At least 45 Waxwings arrived and sat in the trees along the road as usual. After about 10 minutes of preening they made their way along the tree line before dropping down into the garden. Most birds fed on the apples in the top of the tree but quite a few birds were attracted down to the berries and some were soon caught. Birds were extracted shortly after being caught and some feeding birds didn't bother leaving the garden while I was doing this.

I only had the net open for an hour and caught 15 Waxwings; 9 were new birds and only 6 were retraps. This was a much higher proportion of new birds than expected and brought the total number ringed in the garden over the past couple of weeks to 70. In addition there have been the two controls and there are still some unringed birds in the flock so more than 72 Waxwings have visited the garden to date.

One of the birds caught had red waxy tips on some of the tail feathers in addition to the bird's secondaries (inner wing feathers for any non birders). The fact that they can get waxy tips to the tail is not often mentioned so Waxwings can be waxtails too. The most widely accepted hypothesis for the red waxy appendages to the wing feathers is that they are a visual cue to a potential mate as to the birds age. In Waxwings clutch size and the ability to find food increases with the birds age as do the size and number of red waxy tips they display. It, therefore, makes sense for a bird to mate with a bird of similar age to optimise its reproductive success. This is particularly important for a bird that only has one brood and lives on the edge in the northern forests. The presence of red waxy tips to the tail is, presumably, an extension of this age related plumage development.

Red waxy tips to some of the tail feathers on an adult female.

Note the numerous long red waxy tips on this adult male.

Here is a first winter male for comparison with fewer and shorter red waxy tips.

I am not going to get into the finer details of ageing and sexing this species but thought the red waxy tips to the tail was interesting once I had seen it for myself. A friend of mine who is a very experienced ornithologist and museum taxidermist has occasionally seen Waxwings with very long waxy tips to the tail feathers. The specimens he has prepared being the unfortunate victims of road and widow collisions in the main.

Waxwings are not an easy bird to study given their occasional irruptive lifestyle and breeding range in the northern mosquito infested forests of Scandinavia and Russia and that is what makes them so intriguing. I will make the most of my brief window into the Waxwing world and hope to add a little to our knowledge. I hope you find some of my observations and experience of interest too.

View from the window after the brief ringing session.

And a little closer; there are 13 Waxwings in this photo.
This will be one of the abiding memories for me and it doesn't get much better than this.
There were more than 40 birds in the garden when I took this photo.

Waxwing lyrical part 13 - the new normal ?

At least 61 Waxwings gathered in the trees along the road from the garden early yesterday morning. It was difficult to get an accurate count as some birds kept repositioning themselves so there could have been a few more. I had thought that fewer birds would return given all the attention the Sparrowhawk had given them over the previous couple of days.

They moved closer to the garden after about 10 minutes and then the first birds dropped down into the garden about 5 minutes later. I had put a net up but I didn't expect to catch many, if any, as I had loaded the tops of the trees in the garden with apples. I had also put some apples high in a neighbours tree and in the tree line across the road to give them alternative feeding areas and a better vantage point should the Sparrowhawk return. The weather was borderline for mist netting too as there was a bit of a breeze although it was nice and overcast.

The expected Sparrowhawk attacks didn't materialise and the birds fed in relative peace. I sort of relaxed too and indulged in a spell of Waxwing and net watching from the couch in the living room. I soon picked out the usual colour ringed bird and I also noticed that a good few birds were still unringed; perhaps there is a bit more turnover in the flock than I had thought. I didn't really relax that much as there was always the anticipation of catching a few more Waxwings!

Waxwing and mist-net watching.

A few birds were tempted across the garden by the cotoneaster berries that I had acquired. I had placed these and some apples in a buddleia and in my own cotoneaster which had its berries stripped by Blackbirds back in early January. Occasionally one or two birds ended up in the net although most stayed feeding on the high apples. After a couple of hours or so the birds disappeared for a while and I assume they went bathing and drinking or to recce alternative feeding areas.

A Waxwing caught in the 18ft net.

I closed the net at this point and put a few more apples out in the top of the main feeding tree as all the high apples had been eaten. I then took the dogs for a walk satisfied that things were back to normal not that having Waxwings in the garden is really normal for me.

It is over three weeks since the first Waxwing turned up in the garden and they now dominate daily life. Buying apples, going up and down a ladder putting them out, acquiring cotoneaster berries and doing likewise, watching the forecast to see if there is a chance of mist-netting, watching the birds arrive each morning, checking birds for rings and colour rings, generally watching their behaviour and so on. Obsessed is probably the word and why not as this is not likely to happen again.

Another Waxwing being ringed.

Male Waxwing tail with more extensive yellow and red feather shafts.

The waxy tips.

Adult female.

Who is looking at who.

I opened the net for a brief spell in the afternoon and caught another 4 (3 new and 1 retrap). Still no sign of the Sparrowhawk although it could have sneaked in a visit or made a kill elsewhere. Anyway it didn't cause the mayhem witnessed on Wednesday which is the main thing.

Ringing totals for 07/03/13 with retraps in brackets.
Waxwing 7 (3)
Siskin 3 (2)
Long-tailed Tit 3 (2)
Blue Tit (1)
Total 13 (+8 retraps)

The berry bandit update.

The adult male Sparrowhawk continued to harass the Waxwings today and didn't let them settle in the garden for any length of time. It was seen on and off throughout the day but wasn't seen getting a kill. I suspect this will be a daily occurrence now until the Waxwings finally move on. Despite this unwanted attention the Waxwings still managed to eat most of the apples I had put out so they must have made the most of their more limited feeding opportunities.

Sparrowhawk on the look out for Waxwings.

The female Blackcap that I mentioned in yesterday's post was caught in the bird table trap this morning. This trap is a very simple manually operated cage trap which has an escape door that is closed when a string is pulled. She turned out to be quite fat weighing in at 20.2 g. This is around 3g above the average weight and she will be a wintering bird that is fattening up for her return migration to a breeding site somewhere in Europe.

Female Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla).

And finally the berry bandit was out doing some more guerrilla pruning today but he also has a more honest streak and bought another 10kg of apples.

Berry bandit with his swag.