I popped out one afternoon last week to visit an industrial estate. A birder going to an industrial estate in January is most likely to mean ‘waxwings’. And that is what it meant on this occasion.
Waxwings has been reported from the Burton Latimer/Barton Seagrave area over the previous few days and when I had finished a walk at Stanwick Lakes the sun was still shining and I thought I’d try my luck for some January waxwings.
It was just a short drive up the A6. I passed Nene Park, the former home of the once-mighty Rushden and Diamonds and now the home of the always feeble Kettering Town FC where a small number of waxwings were briefly seen before Christmas – they left the ground in disappointment perhaps, as I have done on many occasions. Before I got to Finedon a red kite drifted over the road (I didn’t make my target of 250 red kite days last year but I was well over 200 so it was quite fun keeping count). Finedon is the home of the Rev Richard Coles, previously of The Communards, but now a local vicar and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster – I wonder if he has seen any waxwings? Further up the road I passed as closely as you can to the 10 wind turbines which dominate the local landscape, and of which I am very fond, as they turned tirelessly in the breeze generating clean electricity. On the straight wide stretch of road that is essentially the Burton Latimer bypass there was a police speed-camera van on my side of the road looking down the hill and a few hundred yards further on a large pile of flowers marking what I guess was the site of a recent car accident. How sad to lose someone you love at this time of year.
As I reached the roundabout with the A14 at the edge of Kettering I turned off towards Burton Latimer and was wondering where to start my search for waxwings but the birds made it easy – they were in the trees on either side of the road and fly-catching above it. That really was easy!
I drove a little further as there were double yellow lines on either side of the road, went round the nearest roundabout, headed back and pulled off the road. On the edge of the industrial estate, with white, charmless, square industrial units, lorries coming and going, and notices, tall fences and a general air of built-up grot, a large flock of waxwings was moving around in the trees.
I counted 76 birds but there could easily have been more (and who cares really – there were lots?). They were mostly sitting in the tops of alders, ashes and willows. A lot were fly-catching in the very welcome sunshine. I couldn’t see what they were catching, if anything, but the fly-catching showed the birds off well in the sunlight. Mostly though, they sat in flocks in the tops of the trees, occasionally flying out of sight and then reappearing with a berry to eat.
The waxwings sat at the top of the trees in the sunshine and looked lovely. i stood on the pavement and looked up at them. they didn’t seem to mind at all, or even really notice, and I had really good views (and added waxwing to my 2013 year list).
Nobody else was watching these birds and I got a few looks from lorry drivers and others going about their normal business whilst I, strangely it seemed to them it seemed, stared into the tops of trees at some birds. Fair enough! It would only be a wildlife sighting which would get me walking the pavement of the Burton Latimer industrial estate near the Abbey Board and Alpro units between Kettering Road, Polwell Lane and Altiendez Way. Abbey Board seems to be a paper and cardboard manufacturer and Alpro is , I discover, an organic soya retailer – the things you learn through birdwatching! But I can’t find any mention of Altiendez on Google apart from the name of this road – I wonder where the name comes from?
So waxwing visitors from Scandinavia had brought me to a previously unexplored (by me) grotty part of my local area. Visitors attracting visitors.
The waxwings were lovely. They always are. I went back again the other day to try to find them to show my son before he went back to university but I failed. There was sunshine still, and lorries, and grottiness and some fieldfares in the nearby fields but no waxwings. But that unexceptional corner of an unexceptional industrial estate will always mean ‘waxwings’ to me now. As I pass by, down on the A14, that turn-off will always mean ‘waxwings’ to me. Wildlife has the power to change perceptions of life, geography, culture – everything. That grotty part of east Northants has now become ever-special to me.
Get out and see some wildlife today – and as many days as you can. Maybe you don’t even have to go out – enjoy the birds in your garden. I am waiting for the day that waxwings perch in the tree in my or my neighbour’s garden. It would feel like the neighbourhood had been annointed.
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Just brilliant! I am we’ll the wrong side of 40 can vividly remember being desperate to see a waxwing after learning about them in a YOC meeting in Winchester when I was 7. This winter I made a promise to myself that I would see one. In December there was a local sighting (Dorset) but too late in the day for me to pursue. The next morning my son Ben and I pulled up in the rain outside a cottage in Tolpuddle (yards from the home of one of the Martyrs). It transpired that the berried bush was a cotoneaster that was no more than 4 ft tall. In the low light we watched a pair of hungry blackbirds stripping berries for about 5 minutes. As always we were hurrying to another appointment and had to leave, just before I was about to start the car Ben spotted a ‘robin’ behind the bush only noticing the colour in the gloom…….. but no! It wasn’t your classic sunny Nothants Industrial Estate, the 4 waxwings were 3ft from the ground in the gloom and rain BUT I had my son with me (wearing my old YOC tie as it happened!) and now Tolpuddle will have another special place in my history!
If I get a chance to see a classic ‘Burger King’ or ‘Comet’ Waxwing this winter I won’t pass up the chance!
Mark – great comment, thanks.
Ah, the classic ‘Burger King’ Waxwing! Taste the burger, see the bird!
I’ve still yet to see any waxwings: every time I hear a flock of starlings in my neighbour’s tree I wonder if there are a few in with them. Alas, no. Knowing the A14 and all those industrial estates it seems the visitors are very much like the drivers coming in to pick up goods to take away again.
By the way the flies they were catching were probably those little white moths that are just about the only thing that hatches this time of year – although one mild winter recently I found a mosquito in my bathroom in January…and I live in Cardiff!
Ian – welcome to this blog and thank you for your comment.
Generally it is of course more pleasurable to look for wildlife in a pleasant rural environment but there is a certain satisfaction in finding it in less promising settings. For a couple of years now, I have monitored in a casual way the moths on the window of my local supermarket in Newcastle. I have now recorded moths there in every month of the year and have recorded over 80 species which is much fewer than one might get from regular trapping in a reasonably decent garden but not bad for a supermarket carpark! I do get some odd looks sometimes when peering up at the window or trying to reach up to ‘pot’ a moth for closer inspection!
A great read as usual. We managed to see our firsts Waxwings on Remembrance Day and what a day to remember. A flock of about 80 flying from tree to tree in the sunshine eating the Rowan berries. I thought how privileged my children were to see them at their young ages. A memory I hope they will cherish.
Lorraine – nice! Thank you.
I visited a well advertised flock of Waxwings in Cheltenham on a lovely sunny day (a rarity in itself nowadays!) about 10 days ago; only the second time ever I have seen Waxwings and they were real stunners in the sunshine. These birds were on a large housing estate and were being enjoyed by visiting birders and a fair number of interested local residents.
Hi Mark
I still haven’t managed to track any Waxwings down, even though you bet that I would see one before the end of the holidays https://markavery.info/2012/12/16/waxwings/#comments
Well its the last day for the holidays and its thick fog. One last try this afternoon. I went to see them at RSBP Conwy, but they didn’t show up on the day I was there. This keeps happening. However, I have really enjoyed reading about everyone elses sightings and seeing their pictures and winter isn’t over yet.
I was really, really lucky to see and hold a beautiful little Willow Tit though this week when I was out ringing, so that did make up for it a bit.
http://wildeaboutbirds.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/willow-tit-day-with-scouse-ringer.html
I am going to fill in my weekly BTO garden bird survey while I wait for the fog to clear. Hope you have a brilliant day. From Findlay
Findlay – I had another look for waxwings today but failed completely. Luck is a big part of it – and persistence. I was twice your age before I saw my first waxwing – I’m pretty sure you won’t have that long to wait. Good luck!
Some lorry drivers will know what you were doing Mark, there was once a Barn Owl in that vicinity and had a lot of truckers slowing for where it crossed/flew across the road. Kettering Town no longer plat at the Diamonds old ground, couldn’t afford the rent/rent dispute, there’s talk about Kettering playing at Corby’s ground, the latest club nominated to play at the Diamonds ground, if you can believe it will be Coventry, talks ongoing.
I like the count of Red Kite days, sadly recently in my truck I drove past THREE dead kites on the carriage way of the A14 near to where it meets M1/M6 junction 19, I’ve seen kites on the A14 on the central reservation put to see three right next to each other had me a bit wary….
Douglas – Kettering never played anyway (I speak from a strange strong loyalty to R&D)! Coventry – crikey!
I know I once worked for Doc.Martins until I turned up after a factory fortnight and found the gates locked and out of pocket…nice man 🙁 in ref’ to Coventry, my eyes rolled when I heard that one too….very true though Coventry supporters not happy.
As a new reader of your blog I was delighted to see your post about waxwings. The last paragraph made me have to boast I’m afraid! Last month my two year old son and I walked out the front door to go to the shop and I almost fell over in shock when I saw waxwings in our rowan tree in the front garden. We dashed back inside and watched them feeding on the berries for about an hour, took lovely photos from the lounge window, and I showed Jacob pictures of them in the bird book. It intrigued me how every time someone walked past the tree along the pavement, they flew up to the TV aerial on the roof, then back down when the coast was clear. We live in Hemsby on the east coast of Norfolk, so normally see waxwings most winters, but seeing them in our garden on a little tree I only planted two years ago was very special. We do feel annointed!
Hannah – welcome and a great comment which does indeed make me rather envious…
I (knowingly) saw my first ever waxwings before Christmas. At least 4 in a tree around the corner from my house in Thrapston. They looked so exotic I pulled over and walked back to watch them. A real thrill on an otherwise fairly typical day!
Gail – that’s great. I know one of your colleagues who wished they had seen them too! I’ve seen them this winter at Chelveston and Burton Latimer but no nearer to home. Thanks for your comment.
Lovely post Mark – a corner of an east Northants industrial estate that is forever waxwing?
Saw my very first waxwings in December – extremely lucky glance from the car on a snow covered and very sunny day near Potton, Beds. Another car had stopped and the driver was pointing a very long lense at a hedge which is how I knew to look. I promise I only took my eyes off the road for a second and there they were flying alongside the car … quite unmistakable. I hope the photographer got a good shot of them (not a lense full of blurred Vauxhall Corsa…)
Can I just say here that I am probably in a minority among your readers, in that I have actually been in the away end at Nene Park? Oh, and I saw Waxwings from my back door the other day.