A birding friend of mine said to me today that he wished he'd experienced as many successful Waxwing visits as I had. I asked him how many times he'd gone for Waxwings this winter and he said 6. I replied that I had made 32 trips to date ( pm Mon 10 Jan) - from early November 2010 - with no less than 17 dips; to put it mildly ,he was 'gobsmacked'. I haven't put my dips on the web, as I consider it a Lincs Bird Sightings and not a Lincs Non-Bird Sightings website, but as an item of Bird Chat here goes :
( Location ) ( Trips ) ( Successful ) ( Dips )
Carlton Centre, Lincoln 8 2 6
Cherry Willingham 2 0 2
Tentercroft St. Linc 4 4 0
Mag. Courts, Linc 4 1 3
Rly Station, Linc 6 3 3
Ocean Rest. N Hyk 3 0 3
Med C. N HYK 2 2 0
W St. H 1 1 0
Sleaford 1 1 0
Branston 1 1 0
32 Trips 15 Successful 17 Dips
Sorry, I'm not very good at setting out tables (my wife says the same)
Note. I had Waxwing appearing in my BBH garden on specially planted Sentinel Crabapples on 3 occasions -24 Dec (1), 27 Dec (4), 28 Dec (3) but nothing before or since, despite much out-of-the-window gawping! I live in hope. Plus many walks around BBH, eyeing suitable berry trees but with no success (yet).
My birding friend also enquired as to why I go chasing after Waxwings anyway, and don't I get fed up with them. I told him : " Show me a birder who is tired of Waxwings and I will show you that birder as tired of life." Anyway, my wife prefers me chasing Waxwings as a Project rather than chasing Rainbows, or even chasing women, although I'm not quite sure what would be expected of me if ever I caught up with one of the latter
-perhaps show her my Bus Pass, talk about my Stamp Collection or The Antiques Road Show? The real danger for us Superannuated Saga Wrinklies is too much of the sitting room and the comfortable sofa, as the threat for us is :
sofa - gravitating
which can become sofa -vegetating
which can become sofa-disintegrating...........so sofa, but not so good.
Waxwings have provided me with a strong stimulus and a self-imposed deliberate strategy to get out of the house. Last summer it was Spotted Flycatchers and Butterflies This winter it's Waxwings. The only problem seems to be (as my wife pointed out recently) that I'm slowly developing Waxwrings round my eyes from too much binocular close-focussing.
Regards,
Freddy
PS. I've just noticed Dave Worrell's post (Mon '3.56pm') re the Nocton Fen Waxwing sighting. A number of us know the very stretch of road well including juicy red Guelder Rose berries ( as I remember, frequented by a lone Waxwing some ? 2 or 3 years ago).
I'm teaching Italian tomorrow morning, but I'll be there pm!.
- it represented a belated 78th birthday present for me (re 10 March).