Cedar Waxwings

This was my first picture of a Cedar Waxwing.  It’s not as good as my very encouraging Flickr friends make it out to be, but I was pretty pleased with it…  being one of my first bird pictures at all!  I like looking at it because it reminds me of an evening when I was at the lake, waiting for the perfect sunset photo to come along.  The willows along the shore were full of Waxwings making their high-pitched calls.  What were they doing?  It looked like they were just playing.  They would take off into the wind and hang there like kites over the waves, then return to the trees to chitter away again, as if saying, “Did you see me that time?  That was awesome!”

It took me a while to decide that those lake birds they were Waxwings.  The light was dim and the context was wrong; I associate Waxwings so strongly with fruit and there was no fruit nearby.  In fact, when I think of Waxwings, I often think of this image by Tom LeBlanc:

Over the summer, through bird banding experiences and subsequent reading, I’ve tried to learn a few more things about Cedar Waxwings.  For example, Jordan  taught me that the chin patch can help you determine males from females:

The male on the left has a bigger dark chin patch than the female on the right.

The name “Waxwing” comes from waxy, red appendages on the tips of some of the secondary flight feathers.  Here’s a good picture of that, once again from Tom’s collection:

While banding with Scott Stoleson and his field crew, I learned that the number of waxy tips can sometimes be an indicator of the sex of the bird… and that there are always exceptions.  Emily pulled a Waxwing out of the nets the other day that had eight tips on each wing making her pretty certain it was a male… except… the chin patch wasn’t very big… and a little poof on the belly showed a huge brood patch.

A couple of cool facts from here and there:

1 – Supposedly, if a Cedar Waxwing finds a particular non-native shrub covered with orange berries and eats those at the time the tail feathers are coming in, the tips may be orange instead of yellow. My favorite bird photographer, Jim Gilbert, found one:

2 – Sometimes the Waxwings eat berries or other fruit that has started to ferment.  And guess what?  They get drunk!

3 – Because they rely on late summer fruit, Cedar Waxwings are one of the latest breeders in North America.

While they are, according to Cornell, “one of the most frugivorous birds in North America,” Cedar Waxwings will eat insects.  Please go check out this series of three photos from Hard Rain’s Flickr account to see a Cedar Waxwing eating a 17-year Cicada!  Pretty amusing:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/hard-rain/518723879
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/hard-rain/515194484
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/hard-rain/515194454

 Learn more:

• Waxwings and Silky Flycatchers: Bombycillidae – Cedar Waxwing (bombycilla Cedrorum): Species Accounts
• Cornell All About Birds – Cedar Waxwing