The year the punks broke

It's been a fantastic winter for Waxwings in the UK - surely one of the best for the Scandinavian species in years. I was hoping for more opportunities to see them and this flock reported in a village park close to home were too good to miss.

Gratuitous Waxwing photos from Hextable Park, Kent, today:

The birds weren't present when I arrived but after a couple of minutes a large flock  appeared and settled in some bare trees in one corner...

They were flighty but not bothered by dog walkers ambling past, I counted around 86 birds in total in the flock

There wasn't a lot of fruit left in the perimeter hedge but every now and then the birds would fly down to feed on the last few rose hips...

This brassy bird flew to the ground right in front of me to salvage a loose rose hip...

...for a split second it cocked its head at me as if to say 'this is MINE! Get your own', before swallowing it whole. It was quite amazing to see actually, rose hips are fairly large...that'd be like me trying swallow a satsuma whole!? I wonder how many they're able to eat and how quickly they digest them?

Some awesome mohican action here

It's a shame the light was so poor today but the birds still gave typically confiding views. They were vocal too, continuously calling, sweetly, in that fashion often described as 'sleigh bells':

After around half and hour, the flock flew off, splitting in two and they hadn't returned when I left 15 minutes later. It seems like the birds are already starting to disperse quite rapidly southwards now, as their favoured berry sources are used up. Given that consecutive irruption years of this scale are unlikely, now might be a good time to find them. My Mum even got in on the Waxwing action this week, following a tip in Dartford, she went out and found her own - nice one! She's never done anything like that before, but who'd blame her?! They are such curious, beautiful birds.