Bunn's Lane, Mill Hill, London, 18/12/2010

10:45-11:15am. Weather: cold, snowing & increasing in heaviness.

I'd been checking the London Birds Wiki & was pleased to see the waxwings apparently getting closer & closer. After reports from the past couple of days of them in nearby Mill Hill it was too good an opportunity to pass up despite the warnings of dire consequences for people travelling in the snow due to the usual staggering un-preparedness of the whole country to tackle 3 inches of snow!

The snow began to fall as I set-off & was quite heavy by the time I picked up Sian from Colindale tube stop. Undeterred we ploughed on round the corner, & almost as soon as we reached the reported postcode, NW7 2EX, I spotted activity from high trees behind a row of houses there. I parked up in a side-street, scanned the trees & realised straightaway that there were approximately 30 Bohemian Waxwing at the top of the trees.



We got out of the car for a closer look & to take some photos & focussed on the high trees, however we soon saw a few take flight & realised they were headed for a small berry tree right behind us, & as we turned to face this tree noticed that it already had a few waxwings munching on the berries! For the next 20 minutes we watched from a few metres away as flocks of a dozen or so commuted between the tall birches behind the houses down to the road-side berry tree where they greedily scoffed the berries. They were very mobile & often seemed disturbed by the normal flow of the traffic passing by. At one point they were joined by an equally hungry Mistle Thrush.



Eventually the waxwings did what turned out to be one final commute before all heading off east, & though we waited for 5-10 minutes they didn't reappear. The snow continued falling heavily so we decided to head off before total chaos erupted on the roads.

When I got home & examined my photos I noticed one that was colour-ringed & reported it to the ring.ac website.



All-in-all a very satisfactory little trip out. These were Sian's first ever waxwings & my first in 23 years; my previous sighting was of a solitary bird in Galashiels, Scotland, 3rd January 1987!