Many recall the white walls of hawthorn blossom which sang out this spring. Yet fewer perhaps will appreciate how they’re the source of a secondary display of beauty now. I’m not thinking of the current red-berry spectacular, but of the waxwings that have arrived to feed on it.
The bird breeds in subarctic taiga (boreal forests), its range spreading as a tonsure around the planet’s northern crown. In years when Eurasia’s forests fail to fruit, however, waxwings come south, sometimes in huge numbers. These unpredictable irruptions were recorded as early as 1552 and, in the typical manner of our species, interpreted as a commentary upon human affairs. “Pestvogel” – plaguebird – and “deathbird” were two old titles.
