First things first; apologies for not blogging recently - my beautiful wife gave birth to our first child a little over a week ago - a baby boy - and I've been somewhat busy since...

Right... onto wildlife.

Bohemian waxwings were beginning to be reported over a month ago in Scotland and the north. These avian winter visitors last came over to Blighty in numbers only two years ago (the cold winter of 2010) and I wrongly assumed it would be half a dozen years or so before they irrupted into Britain again, from their Scandinavian strongholds.

(Bohemian) Waxwings breed in northern forests and breed late - timing their reproduction to coincide with the small fruit season in Scandinavia. After breeding, they tend to stick around the northern climes, stripping fruit trees such as rowan if the fruit can still support a large population of these birds.

Every so often though (historically every half a dozen to a dozen years or so) the berry crop fails on the continent and the birds set off in relatively large numbers to our more temperate climes, where berries don't tend to fail.

As I've said, the last of these irruptions (spelled correctly - an eruption is an explosion OUT - an irruption is an explosion IN) occurred in 2010 but once again, the continental berry crop seems to have failed and in our Bohemian friends have come - in numbers.

Because they irrupt into Britain from the north and east (Sweden, Norway etc) they first tend to show up in the Shetland Islands, Fair Isle, and down the east coast of Scotland and northern England.

Please click here to watch a super video of a boy hand-feeding waxwings on Fair Isle.

When the birds have stripped the rowan, pyracantha, cotoneaster, holly and hawthorn there - they move further south and west - this is happening now.

We have a problem (however) Houston.

Like the jays, which irrupted into the UK from the continent in October (as the acorn crop failed on the continent also), which have failed to find a plethora of acorns here, due to the lousy spring we experienced in 2012 our acorns and indeed our berries are in relatively short supply - at least compared to 2010 when rowan and cotoneaster were heavily laden. These northern visitors are going to struggle to find enough berries in Blighty this winter it seems.

Surrre..... there are berries around (ornamental pyracantha produce copious amounts of berries each year it seems and some rowans have bloomed well... but many of our berry bushes flowered during a wet April and didn't set fuit this year, or not as much as normal anyhoo).

The more northern plants and bushes - many in Scotland and Yorkshire for example, which flowered during a "heatwave" in May fared better and this is where many of the waxwings will have most joy I guess.

That said, these Bohemian vagabonds are right now all over the country - stripping trees and bushes with great aplomb. They were mentioned as an "and finally" story on BBC Newsnight t'other night and they are all over the papers at present, with the more sensationalist rags predicting a "glacial winter" as the waxwings are here....

The Bohemians

Waxwings are suburban visitors more often than not here in the UK as our rowans, cotoneaster and pyracantha are more often than not ornamental shrubs which (for example) line supermarket car parks and suburban gardens and avenues.

They can be relatively tolerant of humans gawping at them as they feed - tending to find a safe, high vantage point in small flocks, trill to each other (they have a lovely call) before flying down to their chosen rowan tree for a feeding frenzy and then seeking refuge on their high post again - repeat until all the berries have been eaten and they move on.

Waxwings have a reputation for being beautiful. Something I don't really see. They do have a lovely tinkling trilling call but I rather think they're attractive rather than stunning birds. Approximately starling sized, they are pinky brown in colour, with an obvious crest, a little mascara and a black throat. The secondary feathers on their wings have waxy tips (hence their common English name) but its their tail that is very special - fringed with silky yellow ends to their tail feathers.

Their scientific name Bombycilla garrulus literally means the "chattering silk tail" (garrulus - the same as jays as it happens, only the waxwings have garrulus as a specific name, whereas jays are generically chattering.... and Bombukos - Greek(ish) for "silk" and Cilla modern Latin for "tail")

Compare them to our great tits (for example) or great spotted woodpeckers, or kingfishers, or magpies, bullfinches, goldfinches or yellowhammers (as more examples) and they (to me at least) can appear quite dowdy. Our starling is far more beautifully-marked at this time of year than the visiting Bohemians I think - at least in bright sunshine where its spotted, iridescent plumage shines in the winter sun.

But its always a great pleasure, a thrill even, to marvel at the Bohemian waxwings - and that's just what I did briefly yesterday on the way back from a baby errand in Reading.

I had heard they (waxwings) were in the area (not 5 minutes drive from our gaff on the edge of Bracknell) and I packed a camera into my shopping bag - just in case they were still there.

I was in luck - in the gorgeous, cold, crisp, cloudless, winter sky, were eight winter vagabonds - all perched on the roof of a house in a new build housing estate - eyeing up rowans in the drive below.

Now I don't particularly like pointing lenses at peoples' houses (roofs, chimneys or windows) and I wouldn't appreciate that sort of behaviour myself (if I was ever lucky enough to have waxwings perch on my roof and a large, monstrous-looking, unkempt, bestubbled bloke started taking photos of our place, even if he did only have a relatively short 200mm lens!), but I had to get a shot of these lovely wee birds...

Sometimes I wish I had a longer lens for my camera, but on beautiful winter days like yesterday, marvelling again (so soon after 2010) at our vagabond waxwings - I didn't care at all.

You know..... there are some good things about winter after all and if our baby boy continues with his (rude) health and grows up to be at all interested in wildlife.... I'll tell him that he was born in the waxwing winter of 2012...