My son, Alex, visiting us for a long weekend from the confines of London, fancied a nice long drive well into the country today. Co-checking with "Birdguides", the destination was clear :
" ( as of 15 April 13.45 ) Colney (nr. Norwich) :
72+ Waxwings between the Institute of Food Research and the University of East Anglia sportsfield. "
We arrived in the area at 11.15, parked up and soon found the vast UEA sportsfield. Within 15 minutes a large flock of Waxwings was spotted landing in some tree-tops. Approaching the area, we counted ( 2 or 3 times ! ) c.70 Waxwings perched in the top of an Ash tree next to an Ivy-covered tree. I scanned around looking for a likely berry source but with no success. It then became quite clear why the birds were perched next to the Ivy......IT WAS their berry source: relatively small unsavoury-looking black Ivy berries growing in clusters. The Waxwings made several visits to the berries and, as Ivy has very few perching branches, they were mainly hovering and snatching off the berries in mid-air. It is the first time this Winter/Spring that I have seen Waxwings eating Ivy berries.....but that was all that was around, presumably.
For record purposes we took some photos of the birds through an iPhone pressed up against binoculars ( there must be an easier way of photographing birds
), in poor light.......hence the poor quality !We left the area at 12.00 ( the Waxwings were still around but it had begun to drizzle ), and we made our way to a Colney village pub to have a celebratory pub lunch ......." mission accomplished "
...... before driving back to BBH.Freddy