| from the April 19, 2009 Newsletter, issued from the
Siskiyou Mountains west of Grants Pass, Oregon: WAXWINGS Friday I visited an ophthalmologist in town to check the progress of my eyes' cataracts and was surprised to encounter about a dozen Cedar Waxwings, BOMBYCILLA CEDRORUM, awaiting us, perching about ten feet high in flowering Norway Maples at the parking lot's edge. I'm used to seeing waxwings high in trees in the woods, not just ten feet up in a town parking lot. You can see one of these neat-looking birds, its colors bleached because of a very bright background, below:
All across the southern US Cedar Waxwings are only winter visitors. In much of the US Northeast and this part of the Pacific Northwest they're permanent residents, but most of their summer breeding ground lies in Canada. During courtship the male and female may perch close to one another passing small objects back and forth, maybe a small fruit or a bug. Mating pairs sometimes rub their beaks together in a way that to human eyes looks a lot like an expression of affection. I've never seen a solitary Cedar Waxwing; they're always in small to large flocks. According to an online etymology site the name "waxwing" derives from "... the tips of its feathers which look like red sealing-wax." The whole bird seems made of wax to me, crafted by a master artist creating a bird prettier than it really needs to be, and I guess that that's exactly the case after all. from the February 1, 2004 Newsletter, issued from near
Natchez, Mississippi: Right after receiving that picture, Leona in Missouri wrote "I have been noticing rustlings in the dry oak leaves, rustlings when there is no wind, and close scrutiny discloses cedar waxwings tucking themselves into curled oak leaves. To keep warm? To make interesting noise? Who could guess. Last week when I was working in shirtsleeves and it was warm, I was surprised by a whole flock of them flying out of a brown-leafed oak. Now, (it was 4 degrees this morning and 20 degrees now) as I trudge back along the ridge with my bucket of sunflower seeds for the chickadees and nuthatches and titmice, downys and hairys and yellow bellied woodpeckers, I find oak trees with leaves that rustle and move and they are full of waxwings. So temperature does not seem to be the answer." Around here regularly I spot high-flying waxwing flocks of 10-20 birds, issuing thin, high-pitched, quavering calls as they pass over. They fly in close formations and it's something to see how quickly each bird reacts to its neighbors' changes of course. The flock behaves like a single organism, a compact but diffuse unity perfectly conscious of itself. from the December 9, 2001 Newsletter, issued from near
Natchez, Mississippi: "Mechanical" is also a word coming to mind when viewing the birds with binoculars. Each buff-colored, jauntily crested adult bird wears a narrow, black mask with a neat, white border. There's a dainty dab of red at each wingtip and a dapper yellow band across each tail's tip. The prim little bird looks as if it's been concocted by a skilled German craftsman -- almost too composed, contrived, sleek and elegant to be real. Tuesday morning about 120 waxwings adorned my big Pecan's topmost branches. At first they perched silently and unmoving about a foot apart, each bird positioned so that dawn's low-slanting sunlight struck its broad chest. Waxwings, while small, possess rounded chests, and now in the morning sunlight 120 little chests made soft, oval glowings within the big Pecan's black reticulation of naked branches. I admired by guests awhile, then returned to tending my fire. In twenty minutes I scanned them again with my binoculars and now it was a different scene, for every bird had broken into a frenzy of feather-preening and stretching. I was glad to see that they had made themselves at home. Except for those observed during my recent backpacking trip in the Smokeys, the last Cedar Waxwings I had seen before Tuesday were those here late last spring when they were among the last winter residents to leave for their summer breeding grounds up North. At that time they were obviously loath to abandon our cherry trees. Early each morning they would warm themselves as the sun rose, quietly perched in the top of a certain tall Baldcypress near the orchard. Then suddenly the entire flock would descend into a cherry tree en masse, and every bird would energetically gorge itself. Sometimes it appeared that the cherry tree was waving its arms in amazement, such was the bustle within its boughs. During summers Cedar Waxwings are found in Canada and much of the northern US, as far south as the higher elevations of the southern Appalachians. In the winter they shift southward, as far south as Panama, but their northern distribution still includes part of New England and Montana. |
