Cedar Waxwings 2020

I kind of let things get away from me again. I need to be more disciplined in freezing content and getting the ink on the paper so to speak. I had intended to get a blog out earlier but kept waiting for just the right pictures. I was planning to include some more kayaking adventures in this blog, but ended up with almost seven hundred cedar waxwing photos and three more kayaking adventures with their attendant pictures. So the kayaking adventures are planned for the next blog.

So as the title says, the cedar waxwings are migrating through this area in force. We have seen a few strays or early arrivals over the past couple of weeks, but the main flocks are coming through now. The cedar waxwings are taking advantage of our cedar trees and bird baths.

We first noticed the birds when we sat down to breakfast. They were right outside the breakfast nook, swarming the cedar tree. Here I am taking pictures from the most expensive bird blind I have ever owned.

The birds were chowing down on the cedar berries. Occasionally they would eat a cherry or two as well. They didn’t pay much attention to us and we happily took pictures all morning.

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We also shot some video. Here are some clips from the morning photo shoot.

I was playing with me new software toys and created a slide show. I am not quite able to achieve as good a result as I would like but I guess that will come with experience.

The birds must be from the wilds as they are not used to bird baths. They had to wait for other birds to splash to get water. Because of the mottled breasts, these birds are predominately juveniles.

This flock of birds was not aware of how to get the water in the bird bath and tended to try to get the splash over.

Cedar Waxwings with orange instead of yellow tail tips began appearing in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada in the 1960s. The orange color is the result of a red pigment picked up from the berries of an introduced species of honeysuckle. If a waxwing eats enough of the berries while it is growing a tail feather, the tip of the feather will be orange. (All about birds)

A few did finally figure out how to use the bird baths.

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The cedar waxwings weren’t the only birds putting on a show.

Looks like Merlin was right and the little bird with yellow is a yellow rumped warbler. It showed up at our bird baths.

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The birding has been Okay recently.

More to come.

Mark, Wink and Meg