No offence to Coldharbour Road’s usual residents, but most days people don’t travel from far and wide to stare at them in awe and take photos.

That wasn’t the case last week as hundreds of birdwatchers descended on the Northfleet street to get a glimpse of some rare waxwings that had taken up residence in trees near the junction with Snelling Avenue.

The birds started arriving the previous weekend and were seen throughout the week, as flocks of waxwings were driven to Britain by cold weather in Northern Europe.

More than 50 of the birds were spotted in the trees at times throughout the week, drawing a steady flow of birdwatchers and amateur photographers.

Among them was John Robinson, from Ditton near Maidstone, who explained the invasion was known as “waxwing irruption”.

“It’s very special,” he said. “It’s a big winter for waxwings this year. It’s what they call an irruption year when they move down from Scandinavia and Russia, because of the weather conditions in the Arctic.

“Up in Scandinavia the Norwegians and Swedes talk about ‘waxwings falling from the sky’ because if the berries are left too long they start fermenting and the birds actually get drunk and fall to the ground.

“Because we’re further south the berries don’t ferment until much later.”

No drunk waxwings then, but plenty of twitchers drawn by the intoxicating appeal of the rare visitors.

Tim Ballard and Jenny LeBeau, from Belvedere, said they weren’t among the more obsessive birdwatchers, but it was an exciting time nonetheless.

“We’re not fanatical about it,” said Mr Ballard.

“We’re not dyed-in-the-wool twitchers. I’d been painting indoors this morning and needed a break so I thought we’d come up.

“We go about to different bird reserves – travel to Dungeness sometimes – but you only see these once every few years so there’s quite a lot of excitement.”

Paul Fouracre, an amateur photographer whose parents live near Coldharbour Road, said he had seen about 25 of the birds when he was taking photos but that most of the waxwings had moved on after stripping the trees of berries.

“It was a bit of a spectacle the other day,” he said.

“It’s a bit unusual to drive along that road and see people with tripods staring up into a tree.

“A workman came over the road to ask what was going on.”