Saturday 30 October 2010

An Anticipation of Waxwings

Returning from a meeting in Dublin, my sat nav found the waxwings in Bangor. Birdguides said 25 but I counted 33. At one point, away from their berry-laden cotoneaster, they seemed to be flycatching. I looked this up in Birds of the Western Palearctic Interactive and was surprised to find that insects are their main feed in the summer and that they do switch from flies (misquitos and midges) according to whether it is overcast as not, and therefore I suppose that if they come here while it is still mild, they will catch insects. As yet, there are plenty in the east of UK but hardly any in the west as yet. An amusing article headed "Coming to a carpark near you" says that Morrisons took over Safeways to overtake Tesco as the number 1 supermarket for waxwings!

So keep our fingers crossed.