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Portrait of Waxwing

Nature · Birds

Waxwing

Winter visitor · 18–21 cm

Bombycilla garrulus — Bombycillidae (waxwings)

A starling-sized winter visitor from the boreal forests of Fennoscandia and Russia, pinkish-buff with a swept-back crest, a black bandit mask and a yellow-tipped tail. Its name comes from the bright red, sealing-wax-like tips to the secondary feathers. It arrives in Britain in irregular "irruption" years when the Scandinavian rowan crop fails, and is famous for stripping supermarket car-park berries.

How to spot them

  • ▸Pinkish-buff body with a swept-back crest, black bib and black mask through the eye
  • ▸Yellow band at the tail tip, white and yellow wing markings, and red waxy tips to the secondaries
  • ▸A high, silvery trilling 'sirrrr', like a tiny bell, usually heard before the flock is seen
  • ▸Flocks stripping rowan, cotoneaster and hawthorn berries, often in supermarket car parks and on urban roundabouts
  • ▸Starling-shaped in flight — compact, short-tailed, fast and direct

How to know it

Red, sealing-wax-like tips to the secondary feathers give this winter visitor its English name

Waxwing — Bombycilla garrulus.

A high silvery trill like a tiny bell, from a flock stripping berries in a supermarket car park

Waxwing — the call is usually the first clue.

Arrives in Britain in irregular 'irruption' winters when the Scandinavian rowan crop fails

Waxwing — the 2023/24 irruption was the biggest in a decade.

Pinkish-buff with a swept-back crest, black bandit mask and a yellow band across the tail tip

Waxwing — unmistakable once seen well.

Its generic name means 'silk-tail', a translation of the German Seidenschwanz

Waxwing — Bombycilla, coined by Vieillot.

Breeds in the boreal forests of Fennoscandia and Russia, and does not nest in Britain at all

Waxwing — a winter visitor only.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Scientific name Bombycilla garrulus: Bombycilla is a coined Latin rendering of 'silk-tail', from the German Seidenschwanz
  • •The waxy red tips are flattened extensions of the secondary feather shafts; older, more dominant birds carry more of them
  • •BTO BirdFacts gives about 10,000 individuals wintering in the UK (2012–17), but numbers vary enormously between years
  • •Green-listed in Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (2021); it is not on Schedule 1 in Great Britain
  • •It does not breed in Britain — it is purely a winter visitor from Fennoscandia and Russia
  • •Irruptions happen when the northern rowan crop fails; major UK irruptions include 2004/05, 2008, 2010, 2012/13 and 2023/24
  • •In an irruption winter the first flocks usually appear on the east coast from Shetland and Aberdeenshire southwards in late October and November
  • •It can eat several times its own body weight in berries in a day, and has an unusually large liver for processing the alcohol in fermenting fruit
  • •The 'Bohemian' of the international name refers to its wandering habits rather than to Bohemia

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources