Waxwing-Waitrose car park, Henley-on-Thames.
With the sighting of 40 Waxwings being reported at 12:15pm in Waitrose car park, Henley-on-Thames on Berksbirds i decided to go and see if i could locate them. At 2pm i arrived to find them in 2 flocks at the library end(N) of the car park, despite the ambiaent sound of daily human life i could hear their sweet trilling calls coming from a number of tall trees next to the library and also in the tall trees near to the cinema/Brakspear’s offices (the Bull Courtyard)(N/E), from here they all flew to the tall trees on the Kings Rd side(W) of the car park enabling me to do a quick count of 65+ Waxwings. They soon began dropping down from the trees and amongst the cars in the car park to feed on the small berry trees. The big problem was that the car park was very busy with Christmas shoppers and the birds were constantly flushed by passers-by and cars, they were not spending much more than 30 seconds feeding and were flighty. When they did get a chance to snatch a few berries the views were fantastic, especially as these trees are small and the birds are almost at head height, a good number of passers-by stopped to watch and ask about them and all left very thrilled in seeing them. Sadly the light was so poor and with a mist that almost enveloped the car park the chance of some good photos evaporated quickly, it also didn’t help that the birds were very restless due to the constant traffic around them and at 3:15pm they flew off in N/W direction in 2 flocks, i searched the local area and saw 2 flying towards Friar Park but couldn’t re-locate any others.
I returned on Christmas Day as i was visiting family in the area but unfortunately the car park was empty and the majority of the berry trees were now bare, again they had eluded my attempts at getting some acceptable photos. My search would continue.......
