Whilst we have some unelected multimillionaire trying to make us believe that he is delivering on the will of the people by wasting pots of money trying to stop desperate refugees from crossing the Channel in inflatable boats, there has been a degree of rhapsody over the past few weeks, amongst the bird watching community. In particular, at the appearance on these shores of a spectacular northern Scandanavian arrival. The Bohemian waxwing. They have come over in considerable numbers, arriving first in Scotland, to feed on the berries of trees like hawthorn and rowan. They moved steadily down the east coast of England and then spread into more central parts. They have been seen just a few miles from my home recently so it would be a rare pleasure to see even one, for just the second time in my life.
The only time I have seen them was whilst I was lying in a hospital bed at the Midlands Spinal Unit in Gobowen thirteen years ago, during the long, bitterly cold winter of 2011. It was a rare delight to spot a small group of three feeding on some berries on the rowan, barely ten metres from my bed. They are unmistakeable, around the size of a thrush with a luxuriant plumage even the most accomplished graphic artist would find hard to imagine, with a headcrest that puts Donald Trump’s vain quiff to shame.
It is one of those birds that has the X factor. Once seen never forgotten, printed into the memory. To my mind the Green touraco fits into this rare category, a bird I would occasionally see in the fig tree shading my house at the lake in Zambia, as they hopped from branch to branch in search of ripe figs, before flapping on to the next tree. They are acrobatic, energetic, characterful, almost clown-like birds to watch, never keeping still for long, always busy.
Waxwing visits here are unpredictable and in the past these sudden eruptions were commonly treated with suspicion by our ancestors, and the waxwing was judged a bird of ill omen, fortelling imminent disaster. Even today in the Netherlands they are called pest vogel, which roughly translates as ‘pestilence bird’. Nowt so queer as folk!
Lacking the fortune to see a waxwing here I have been hoping to see some the regular visitors I have had in the past on the feeders just outside my window following a couple of days of temperatures dropping as low as -9 C . I would expect to see quite a variety of birds either on the feeders or searching around under the trees on the grass or on the now mostly bare ground with various spring bulbs beginning to show.
So far my list shows: Lesser redpoll – Zero. Great tit – Nada. Coal tit – Amna. Long-tailed tit – Diddly squat. Greenfinch – Dim. Bullfinch – Absent. Nuthatch – Nil. Treecreeper – Hakuna. Greater-spotted woodpecker – Zilch. Siskins – Where are you?
Siskins have been a regular winter visitor from the time I started feeding the birds some eight to nine years ago. A small lively little greenish finch with flashes of yellow, grey stripes on the female and the male with a black cap. There is a regular resident population but these numbers are increased by visitors from Europe in the winter.
None of these birds would be described as rare in past winters. If it was just the odd bird species it would not be nearly so worrying. It is practically impossible to know the reasons for their collective absence, and I know that my observations are being shared. So whilst the lucky few are able to rhapsodise over the waxwings, and our supposed leaders obsess over inflatable boats, I simply wonder where the siskins have gotten to this year?
