The Solitary 'Poynton Waxwing'

Some winters are great for Waxwings whereas others aren't. Large influxes of birds like Waxwings, Bramblings and Hawfinches depend on the weather and food supply in the countries from where they originate - if the weather and food supply is good, they don't need to migrate so far for the winter.

This year has been great for Hawfinches, not bad for Brambling but mediocre for Waxwings. So when birds do appear, even just one, there is a lot of interest from the birding community as the news gets round.

I tried for a single bird in Sprotborough near Rotherham recently, because it was regularly visiting a street with plenty of cotoneaster berries.  I sat for an hour and half in the road facing someone's house waiting for this bird to arrive, and it didn't.  All I had was a solitary Blackbird where the Waxwing should have been.  I viewed never to travel more than a few miles for just a single bird ever again.

But this solitary bird was and, as I write, is still being seen regularly in a suburban street in Poynton, Cheshire, so the prospects of seeing it were good and I decided to go.  When I arrived there were three other birders present, so I just looked up and there was the Waxwing.

The birders were locals Phil Oddy, who had kept us updated on Facebook and WhatsApp almost every day since it was first spotted, photographer Paul Bennett and professional wildlife photographer and guide Ben Hall who happened to live in this very street.

We had plenty of time to chat about life, the universe and everything because the bird spent most of its time up in a bare tree and only came down very briefly for a few seconds to feed on two small Rowan tree with yellow berries.

As you can see from the photographs, the weather wasn't great and the light was very poor, but I wasn't too upset about this as I've got good Waxwing shots from previous years.  I only really came because I probably won't get chance to see another one this winter.