Ten Reasons to Love Cedar Waxwings

Cedar waxwings didn't use to be one of my favorite birds but this past year they have really grown on me! I think that I used to judge them by what I considered their rather bandit-like appearance -- because of their black mask.  This year seemed to be a particularly good year for seeing Cedar Waxwings around our place, so I had lots of opportunities to observe them.  And what I saw, I liked!

Here's a list of the top ten things I like about Cedar Waxwings:

1.   They really are beautiful ('bad boy' mask and all).  They have lovely coloration, with their sleek golden brownish body, gray wings, creamy yellow belly, white undertail coverts, and yellow tips to their tails.  And then there's their namesake bright-red waxy droplets on their wings.  A very unusual but pretty combination.

 

2.  This time of year, I'm especially thankful for this reason - the fact that they stay with us all year.  While many of our other birds have already left to spend the cold months in places warmer and sunnier than northeastern Pennsylvania,  Cedar Waxwings are here for the duration.

Three of them eating tiny crabapples last December after a snowstorm.

3. I love to watch them flying over our swamp in the summertime, catching insects while on the wing.  They have their own unique aeronautics... different than the swallows-- graceful and yet slightly awkward, too!  We had quite a flock of them this year and I enjoyed watching their flight shows.

They didn't seem to mind me watching too much-- even sharing the dock with me at times, between insect-catching flights.

Notice this one doesn't have any red on its wings.

4.  Their musicality.  Not that they have a lovely song, but that they are mostly always making sounds.  Their sounds are characterized by people who describe bird sounds with human words as "high, thin whistles" or a "trilled brzeee", neither of which sound all that pleasant, do they?  But, somehow, it's just nice to hear them.  They call to each other or just sing while on the wing.  Sweet.  (you can listen here, although I recommend skipping the second recording... it's very high pitched!)

5.  Speaking of sweet... their courtship.  A male will sit close to a female and pass a fruit, insect, or flower bud to her.  She will take it and then pass it back to him.  They may pass it back and forth a few times and then the female will eat it.  Dating... waxwing style.  I got to watch a pair do this and take photos of them this spring.  You have to look carefully, but you can see them passing a tiny item back and forth in the next 3 photos.  I believe it was a wild cherry bud, as they were sitting in a cherry tree which was just barely in bud.

Pretty cool huh?!

6.  Next, their smartness in choice of nesting sites.  I knew where two Cedar Waxwing nests were this summer -- both were so well hidden that if I had not seen them flying in and out I would never have known they were there.  That's one of them in the next photo.

I managed to get one photo where you can just barely see the bird, upside-down, feeding the young ones.  The top arrow in the next photo points to the adults' yellow tail band and the bottom arrow to its white undertail feathers, sticking out of the nest.

Here's the nest as it appears now that all the leaves are off the tree.

They choose the spot with the most 'sucker' limbs in the whole maple tree, so it was really hidden!

The tree is right on the edge of our yard.

The small 'dot' at the upper right center of the tree is the nest.  The other nest I know of was in a nearby tall White Pine tree-- another very safe location for raising a family of baby birds.

7.  The serendipitous nature of seeing Cedar Waxwings.   While this is somewhat true of birds in general (you never know what you are going to see), unlike Chickadees which you expect to see on any walk in the woods, or sparrows you figure will be flitting around in the brush-- with waxwings you just never know when they're going to appear.  They tend to travel around a fairly large area looking for fruit or berries.

8.  Their sociability.  Except when they are nesting, they usually are in groups.  They just seem to like each others company.  While I've read that they can form flocks of a hundred or more, the group I see here usually numbers somewhere around 20.  I took-a-chance photo of part of a flock in a tree recently and then counted all of them I could find in the photo.  I'll let you have a chance to count in the first photo before I show you how many I found.

Okay, did you find them all?

I counted 14.

9.  Their ability to fend for themselves.  No relying on human-provided sunflower seeds or suet for them!  They'll eat almost any kind of berry or fruit in the winter or insects in the summer.

Here's one eating a euonymus berry

Three Cedar Waxwings in a juniper bush, the one on the top is popping down a juniper berry.

10.  And the final reason I like Cedar Waxwings...  I like that there is a little mystery to them.  No one seems to know why they have those red waxy droplets on their wing-tips... or why some do and some don't.  Well, God knows... maybe I'll ask him someday!

PS - Sara, I dedicate this post to you, since Cedar Waxwings have already long been one of your favorite birds!