When Linda and I first moved to Blofield Heath, almost the first shrub we planted was a Tree Cotoneaster. Twenty-something years later it's one of the tallest plants in the garden, second only to our old Sycamore. Every year there's a fabulous berry crop on the Cotoneaster, which never fails to attract Redwings and Fieldfares (There are some in residence this morning!) but never have we had a single Waxwing.... Will this be the Winter?
2 comments:
Hi David,
There wont be a Waxwing winter this year. On the Northumberland coast we know if its a good year because the birds begin to arrive in numbers between Halloween / Bonfire night. There were none this year. My best garden year was 2012 when we had 110 in feeding on apples for a week.
Cotoneaster is the very last berry they consider, usually on their way back home when too cold for fly catching! The order of preference is Rowan (ours are eaten long before waxwing time but some of our twon rowans still have them in October and thats the best place to find the first birds) then Hawthorn and Apple, followed finally by rosehips, whitebeam then Cotoneaster when all others are gone.
Maybe you will catch one on its way back in April. Good luck.
Hi Stewart!
Thanks for that: all good stuff! Our previous house had a very small garden with ground-hugging cotoneaster: every year we lived there we had a few Waxwings. Just lucky, I guess (We also had Swallowtails in the garden too!)
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