We scoured the area and my scouts told me three waxwing had been seen gorging on yellow rowan berries. For the next ten days we searched but could not find them. Then the snow came. It looked lovely but snow followed by ice and heavy rain put paid to my venturing forth for the first ten days of December.
One Boxing Day I stood in wellingtons in the snow beneath this birch tree and listened to twenty five waxwing chattering in its branches in the fog. They roosted there, safe in its high branches.