I've generally reckoned a good waxwing winter coincides nicely when the UK has a poor berry crop. Because, if it's bad here, it is likely to be considerably worse over there. The last good waxwing year, where we had good numbers on cotoneaster at the foot of our street here in New Hey, was a dreadful autumn and winter time for berries in the UK. There were hardly any rowans or anything, just rotten ol' cotoneaster, which strike me as a last resort berry for them.
Another [maybe] useful tip is that a lot of the birds reported on the forum, and on Twitter, seemed to suggest they were in or near Tesco car parks, so they might've had an offer on for cheap berries!
Of course, in the interests of being balanced, I must point out that other supermarket car parks are available......................... although as Rob says, the favoured one for Waxwings in Northwich too is........................ Tesco
Just another thing, we seem to have a lot of Redwings & continental Blackbirds this year & they have been like locusts stripping many of the berries available in Cheshire's more rural areas. I think that if/when Waxwings hit the NW the supermarket car park berries are some of the only ones left due to the areas being busier and spooking species like Redwing and Fieldfare thus leaving these trees laden when the Waxwings arrive. So all we need now is a general UK Waxwing influx & we should start to check our urban berries
I'm currently spending most of my time working in Stockholm, Sweden, where the locals reckon that the weather has been unseasonably warm and there have been very few days in the last month where the temperature has dropped below zero. I've yet to see any Waxwings locally this winter though there have been sightings of big flocks further south of Stockholm.
You can have a look for sightings for yourself on this excellent website
http://www.artportalen.se/ViewSighting/SearchSighting (switch the search form to English by clicking on the flag at the top of the screen)
Performing a search for the last month would appear to show a concentration of sightings on the West coast of Sweden, so maybe if the weather turns colder, they will move even further to the west - fingers crossed.
Hi chaps, The last influx of Waxwings was late 2012 and a lot of them stayed well into 2013 at some sites, and into May 2013 at the famous garden if I remember rightly. Apparently the Scandinavian berry crop did fail that year I remember reading, which is I believe, the single biggest factor for Waxwing movement from their usual winter home. They change their diet from insects in the summer to berries in winter (they eat other things too eg. buds, petals, fruit and sap).
There was a fairly large flock that was habiting an area between Oxford Rd and Princess Parkway near the City Centre, I remember taking a pal of mine to see them, and he was amazed that they'd already packed out a couple of the berry trees, and more birds were arriving, and the one mentioned in Hulme is, in the scheme of things, virtually round the corner.
Another [maybe] useful tip is that a lot of the birds reported on the forum, and on Twitter, seemed to suggest they were in or near Tesco car parks, so they might've had an offer on for cheap berries!
Hope that helps you somewhat, I'm certainly no expert, and I suppose we can only go off what has happened before, so to speak. Cheers Rob
Thanks Ryan, not on twitter but will see if I can get a look via someone else's account. Not sure about most likely places in Manchester, but I had a few in my garden in Hulme two or three years ago which I think was regarded as a good year for waxwings in the UK. I'm sure the odd one or two will crop up somewhere this year, may just be a matter of luck whether someone's around to identify them.
No local expert with regards to berry crop and how it looks in terms of the rest of the year, but if you haven't found it already, there's a twitter account following the progress of the Waxwings - search on google for waxwings uk. So far there seem to be a few in the country, but mainly confined to the eastern areas; Northumbria, Suffolk, East Yorkshire. I think there's been one sighting in Liverpool? You could probably try to get a sighting if you were willing to travel around a bit.
In terms of the Manchester area, does anyone know of the most likely places they'll crop up, do they usually show up in a regular spot? I'm guessing it'll be somewhere outside of the city if there is, as there's not exactly an abundance of berries in the city centre from what I've seen!
Does anyone have any news/insights on whether we can expect a good influx of winter migrants from Scandinavia this year? I'm thinking mostly of redwing, fieldfare and waxwing, and I hope I'm right in saying a lot depends on the weather and subsequent availability of berries in Scandinavia. I'm sure there will be other factors at play, as well as other geographical areas and other types of bird affected, so any insights from resident experts would be most welcome. Thanks.
