The Waxwing, pictured above, is a first winter bird, you can tell this by the lack of intense yellow on the tail and the absence of bright yellow on the wings. When you compare it to a male below you can see that the wings are marked in a totally differing pattern. In addition the pictures show that the waxy appendages, from which the species gets it’s name, are far less developed in the young bird and more numerous in the adult. If you now refer to the third picture, you can see that this is a nicely marked bird and I believe it to be an adult female.

These pictures were all taken yesterday and by dusk most of the berries had been taken from the two Rowan bushes that had been the centre of their world for the last week.  I placed some Cotoneaster Berries there after dark expecting, and hoping that when the day dawned, they would accept these new offerings.  No chance!!!!!! they are not that stupid! Believe it or not, they could tell without seemingly even checking them out, that these berries were not Rowan and should therefore be ignored.  It really surprised me that they would rather move on elsewhere and find something else rather than feast on the perfectly ripe, red  and appealing berries. This was a big surprise to me. I did take a few shots this morning even though the weather had deteriorated quite a bit.

But, back to yesterday here are a few more when the light was really good.

I was really struck by the silky, shiny plumage of this bird which shows up really well in this photo. In the past, when these birds were are real mystery they were called ‘Silky-tails” and you can see how fine, smooth and silky their plumage is.