The Wonder of Majestic Waxwings

The weather has been much more like Spring than Winter over the last four days, this has enabled me to be out and about.

On monday I went to some of my local patches, whilst in the car park of one of my local reserves I got talking to a couple who had travelled down to Tee-side from Newcastle.

One of them was a semi- professional photographer, so again I was able to ask all sorts of questions on how to achieve the best shots!

They were looking for some of the rare and scarce visitors that were frequenting the area.  As I knew were the birds had been sighted we spent most of the day travelling around to a numbers of reserves.

We parted company after an excellent day birding and swapped some contact details.

I recieved an email from them on the 03/03/2010 informing me that Waxwings had been sighted in Norton feeding in gardens for the last four days.

This is the village were I was born and bred and 5 minutes down the road from were I live, on wednesday I left the house early to go and Twitch my first bird.

I knew the location and arrived to find a few Twitchers already there! I enquired if the birds were around.

No I was informed, I had already decided that I would stay put and wait! I have only seen one other Waxwing and was relishing the opportunity to see another one in my home village.

Several more Birders and Twitchers arrived some travelling several hundred miles to catch a glimpse of a Waxwing.

After seven hours, all the people that arrived after myself had now gone and everyone kept saying the birds had moved on.

I thought another hour, then I will make a move. I then caught sight of a bird and I knew it was the bird I wanted to see!

( I JUST HOPE THE PHOTO'S STAY PUT!!!!!!!!! )

My patience paid off at the end of nearly an eight hour wait!  I was even more lucky the following day as I returned to catch another glimpse of this stunning bird it was feeding again.

I was also fortunate to meet some of the residents who were absolutely magnificent and I couldn't thank them enough for there hospitality!

I returned today with a number of photo's that I gave to them.

Regards Buzzard