Get To Know the Waxwing
The Waxwing is a plump, colourful bird with a prominent crest. You can recognize them by their reddish-brown body, black throat, black mask around their eyes, yellow and white in their wings, and yellow-tipped tail. Waxwings can visit the UK in search of berries in the winter during interruptions where their population is too big in their breeding grounds in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe for the available food.
Key Facts
Scientific Name: Bombycilla garrulus
Bird Family: Waxwings
Diet: Berries
Population: Global population 64 million/ UK Wintering 10,000
Measurements: Length: 18 cm/ Wingspan: 32-35 cm/ Weight: 45-70 g
Conservation Status and Threats
Waxwings are a green listed species, meaning they are not a conservation concern currently. The prevalence of berry trees in landscaping and the reversion of fields to shrublands and forests has contributed to the stable population of the Waxwing. However, Waxwings are still vulnerable to the same issues that face all birds, like pollution and climate change.
Nesting and Breeding Habits
Waxwings don’t nest in the UK. While Waxwing pairs often nest together, the females do all of the nest building. You can find the nests in the fork of horizontal tree branches three to 50 feet above the ground.
When and Where to See Them
Waxwings start to arrive in the UK in October on the west coast of Scotland and East Anglia, but may move inland in their search for food. You can spot Waxwings where you find berries — retail parks, supermarket parking lots, or suburban gardens. They favor the berries of Rowan or Hawthorn trees, but will also eat the berries of rose or cotoneaster.
Call To Action
You can help the Waxwing thrive by using recycling programs that decrease pollution and by supporting the RSPB.
Volunteer: RSPB Volunteering Program
Donate: RSPB Donation Page
About The Artist
Teagan White is an artist and outsider naturalist whose work arises from direct experience with natural phenomena and dedicated communication with the land. Through careful observation and poetic allegory, their paintings explore regional ecological issues such as drought, wildfire, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity loss, as well as the universal spiritual and psychosomatic burden of our acquiescence to a necrotic, extractivist civilization. Though influenced by many years in the Midwest, Teagan currently lives in and makes work about the Pacific Northwest in collaboration with coastal, temperate rainforest, and savannah habitats.
Website: www.teaganwhite.com
Social: @teaganwh
About Our Partner
The RSPB is the UK’s largest nature conservation charity, working locally in the UK, and around the world. Our vision is a shared world where wildlife, wild places, and all people thrive. We act by protecting and restoring habitats, saving species, and helping to end the nature and climate emergency. Nature is in crisis. Together we can save it.
For all licensed Products sold by Historiart, Historiart will donate a minimum of £10,000 per annum to RSPB Sales Ltd, which gives all its distributable profits through Gift Aid to the RSPB.
Manufactured under licence from RSPB Sales Limited to raise awareness of the RSPB (charity registration in England and Wales no 207076 and Scotland no SC037654).