Waxwings at Holmethorpe SPs, Surrey ... Wednesday 8th December 2010

After a report of 19 WAXWINGS at Holmethorpe Sand Pits, near Redhill in Surrey late yesterday (our local patch), I joined local birders Eric and Neil at first light and spent two hours in the extreme cold without success.
We didn't know who had reported these birds at that time and our hopes of seeing them soon diminished and we headed for our respective homes.

Early in the afternoon, I received a call from Neil to say that they had returned and, after a few frantic calls to alert others, I headed back to the local patch.
I joined Neil, Des and a couple of other birders and soon locals Richard and Gordon arrived.
Ten birds had seen by Des earlier but only five were showing when I arrived. I stayed until 3 p.m. and the birds were still in the area when I left.



Paul was just arriving as I headed for home but, incredibly, the birds didn't show again.
As it turned out, the original finder of the 19 birds yesterday was Brian Perry and Des had seen them yesterday too.
Only the third record of this species for Holmethorpe and a new local patch tick for me. It is especially pleasing that Neil connected with them as he had been chasing Waxwings all over Surrey without success and, as is often the way, the local patch came up trumps.

Paul had visited Holmethorpe duriong the morning and noted a Kingfisher, 2 Common Snipe, over 40 Teal, a Treecreeper and 20 Lesser Redpolls (his video below).



Graham