The Berry Thieves

The bird watching continues. This day, it's the cedar waxwings that have captured my attention.

At one point, there were nine perched here together.

It's a beautiful bird and right up there with the male and female cardinals on my list of favorites. Until two years ago, I'd only ever seen them in photographs. Then I saw one at Frederik Meijer Gardens.

Last year, I first spotted them eating the berries on the serviceberry (Amelanchier) tree by the pool house. Since that time, I'd not seen them until this week, when they came in numbers to eat from the Washington hawthorn trees. We've got five mature trees in the yard, so there are plenty of berries to go around. The robins have been dining there, too, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

It was a bright, sunny day today and the cedar waxwings were out in great numbers. If I had to give an estimate of how many I saw at one time, perched all over a large oak tree in the back yard, I'd say about 30! The sun shining on their fluffy pale yellow bellies was beautiful.

Cedar waxwings eat mostly fruits and berries. If the fruit is old and has begun to ferment, they can become intoxicated and even die from eating too many.

I'm not sure what these cedar waxwings are eating from the roof of the
conservatory...

They are native to the entire United States, with them being present year-round in the northern half of the US. In summer, they reach far into Canada and in winter, will go as far south as the northern tip of South America. Their high-pitched song is distinctive and many times you'll hear them before you see them.

A red, waxy secretion at the tips of some of their feathers gives them the "waxwing" part of their name. The function of these secretions isn't known, but may have something to do with attracting a mate.

Berries on our Washington hawthorn tree

If you want to attract these beautiful birds to your yard, be sure to plant fruit-bearing shrubs and trees, such as hawthorns, serviceberry, mulberry, dogwood, raspberries, cedar, mistletoe,  juniper, mountain ash, honeysuckle, and crabapple.In summer, they'll also each such insects as scale, mayflies, leaf beetles, and dragonflies.