Waxwings are dumpy, starling-sized birds which look like characters from a Beryl Cook painting– all silky curves, coiffured crests and heavy make-up. Imagine an orange / brown hand grenade wearing eye shadow and you’re almost there. Add to it black, white and yellow wings accessorised with a row of shiny, scarlet teardrops.

These waxy red feather tips, which give the bird its name, are believed to be used in courtship; the biggest and best wing-bling belonging to the older males.

Waxwings roam in gangs – you’re more likely to see twelve than one. To be next to a berry-laden bush when a flock descends is akin to being sat in a quiet pub when a drunken hen party bursts through the door. Waxwings announce their arrival with high-pitched chattering and excited trills and greedily squabble over berries as if they were fighting over half-price handbags in the January sales.

Waxwings love berries. They can eat their own body weight in just a few hours. Once this flock of feathered locusts have chomped their way through one berry bush they fly off to ransack another. Their reliance on berries is the cause of their irregular migrations or ‘irruptions’. Every few years a failure in the berry crop in their eastern Scandinavian and northern Russian homeland sparks a winter-long, Europe-wide berry guzzling rampage which eventually leads them to our island. They’re not fussy where they dine; industrial estates, petrol station forecourts, parks and gardens - anywhere that can lay on a decent berry buffet. The ornamental bushes planted around supermarket car-parks are a good place to look for them.

British ‘Waxwing winters’ are by no means an annual event and we may go for years without any waxwing sightings in the Horsham district. Meanwhile we have already been invaded by other Scandinavian tourists – Redwing and Fieldfare have flocked to our parks and gardens while along the Adur you may catch a glimpse of the impressive Short-eared Owl.

There was once a time when people believed that the rare appearance of a flock of Waxwings was an evil omen; a portent of disaster, war or pestilence. Well, I’m willing to take that chance for a glimpse of one of these beauties. I mean, 2022 can’t be worse than the past two years, can it?

By Michael Blencowe: Learning & Engagement Officer, Sussex Wildlife Trust

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Waxwing © Derek Middleton Sussex Wildlife Trust