Taking Flight with Cedar Waxwings
I had been waiting a long time for this spectacle to take place. Thirteen months, as a matter of fact. This special moment was a month behind schedule, and I was becoming impatient, as often is the case when things don't go my way. In previous years, it would happen around the first week of December. I could count on it. This time, December came and went, and I was waiting still.
My pyracantha tree was chock full of plump, red berries, ripe and ready to be devoured by hungry birds. The numerous clumps of succulent fruit weighed the branches down. Only a few birds (White-crowned Sparrows and American Robins), though, were sampling the fruit, and their activity was nothing like the feeding frenzy of thirteen species I witnessed and wrote about here a few years ago.
Where were the Cedar Waxwings?
These black masked berry bandits, plumed showstoppers with silky tails edged with a bright lemon-yellow hue, and lustrous droplets of what appears to be red wax (once used to seal important documents during a bygone era) on the tips of their secondary flight feathers, were nowhere to be found. I had been looking and waiting for their arrival with great anticipation, counting the days as they slowly passed by.
Cedar Waxwing identifying marks
These so wonderfully striking birds are not resident in my patch. Itinerant frugivores, these fruit specialists travel about their North American range looking for sugar-packed seasonal fruit, especially during winter months when diet-supplementing insects are much less prevalent.
I first encountered Cedar Waxwings while I was living in central New Mexico, on a former cattle ranch located somewhere beyond the middle of nowhere. Much of the state is covered with cedar (juniper) trees, and seasonal fruit is plentiful in November and December. It was at an aging, ranch windmill where I came across them unexpectedly one frigid winter morning. A large flock it was, at least forty, with an equal number of American Robins all around. Some of the waxwings perched on the slowly rotating windmill, one-by-one adjusting their position as the blades rotated to an awkward angle; others were drinking from the partially frozen stock tank, shoulder to shoulder with the robins, finches, and bluebirds, as well.
A medium sized bird (approximately 6 inches in length, and weighing about 1 ounce) Cedar Waxwings don’t take any sass from larger birds like the much heftier American Robin (10 inches in length and weighing almost 3 ounces) that might try to shoulder them out of the way on a tree or at a water source. It is a considerable size difference, something like that of a NFL running back facing a defensive tackle, as illustrated in the accompanying photo.
Cedar Waxwing and American Robin size comparison
After moving from New Mexico, I was particularly pleased to discover Cedar Waxwings visiting my new home in the foothills of the Sierra, south of Yosemite National Park. They would briefly appear around the first week of December each year. And, yes, they should have returned by now, I murmured while ticking off the final days of the 2023 December calendar. After all, summer and fall had been particularly warm and sunny; the pyracantha was full of fruit, and the berries surely looked ripe for picking. But the Cedar Waxwings were not here.
Were they going to be a no-show? Had their peregrinations taken them off the beaten path to new oases of fruiting trees? Or, were they just waiting for the berries to over-ripen, ferment, and deliver an alcohol-induced inebriation, as does occur from time to time? Probably not, and I’m not going to speculate on such mindful planning on the part of a bird.
As the days passed, the weather turned cold, and wet. Freezing temperatures, as well as showers, were forecast for the first week of the new year. And that’s when these plumed pin-ups finally appeared. I bundled up, and got my camera gear ready to record the show.
Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) derive part of their name (L. cedrorum) from their principal diet of, well, what else but cedar tree fruit? The “waxwing” label is less intuitive, though. The explanation lies in the properties of the various tree fruits that waxwings consume: the red spots that appear on many adult waxwings are caused by the presence of astaxanthin, a carotenoid pigment present in red fruit. Some biologists surmise that these waxy red tips are indicative of fitness, which plays a role in mate selection during breeding season.
It was on the southerly facing side of the pyracantha tree, in full sun, where the waxwings first focused their attention. The branches there reach upwards towards the sky, and spread far out over a steep slope, as well. Berries growing on those limbs are easily accessible to birds. Gluttons all, they swallowed whole berries, one after another, using their tongue to lob each berry into their crop for later digestion. After inhaling ten or more, they would fly onto the branches of surrounding oak trees, only to return to the pyracantha a few minutes later.
Cedar Waxwing swallowing berry
As chance would have it, that side of the tree does not offer an advantageous viewing perspective: I would have to position myself downslope, looking up, and in open sight of the birds, not at all a favorable place to be standing with eye-to-eye bird photography in mind.
Alright, then, so I would have to wait a few days longer until the waxwings, having eaten all the easy pickings high on the tree, would need to land on the opposite side of the pyracantha to plunder their delectable avian delicacies. And there, that’s where I would be waiting, camera in hand (and hands in gloves), shortly after daylight, as the sun rose over nearby Revis Mountain in partly cloudy, 30° temperatures.
That plan, actually, was easier said than done. Aware of my proximity, these shy birds somehow managed to always put a branch, or leaves, or a cluster of berries between themselves and my lens. I would have to wait a few more days until much of the fruit had been consumed. Only then would I have birds and berries in clear view, on branches facing me. In the meantime, I took a lot of photos of the more emboldened American Robins who didn’t care that I was watching them.
Cedar Waxwing guards berries from American Robins
There is nothing quite like backyard birds to uplift one’s droopy mood on a dreary day. In spite of the cold, the rain, and the all the delays, my doleful spirits took breathless flight, uplifted with childlike awe and wonder at the sight of these feathered creatures who blessed me with their presence once again, if only for a few, ever-so fleeting days before moving on. Watch the accompanying video and see if you don’t feel the same.
In another age, I would have put quill to parchment and then signed my document with a red wax seal stamp, but today the task of writing is performed mechanically, on a keypad. How prosaic.
Celebrate birds.
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