planetLOVE: cedar waxwings

One of my favourite things about spring is when the cedar waxwings come to visit.  I love watching them swarm over the treetops and housetops.  It's pure chance if they happen to choose YOUR yard to visit when you happen to be around, and happen to have your new handy-dandy 200mm f2.8 handy...


The sound of them flying so nearby is a low hum, peppered with tweets and chirps in a succession of downward trills.


They fly around in droves, landing in clumps to feed and drink, hundreds of pairs of thrumming wings, swooping about then descending in a cloud.


They are flying around in search of food, preferably last year's mountain ash berries, which ferment and make the birds a little drunk - on more than one occasion we've had a tipsy one smack into our window, startling us all until we figure out what it is.  Luckily, they are usually flying slow enough that all they require is a bit of a catnap to sleep it off before they regain consciousness and take off to find their friends.  Unfortunately, some of them will hit the window so hard they will snap their neck and we'll have to go remove a little bird body from our flower bed.


If you've never witnessed the waxwing phenomena before, I really hope you are lucky enough to at least once in your lifetime.  It really is something else.

They only hung around my yard for about 10 minutes before flying off like a herd of black flies.  I was just lucky this time.

Comments

Laura Jane said…
BA! You are SO lucky (honoured actually!) to have these Waxwings visit you! I absolutely love them too! I have a first memory of them from when I was a kid, not knowing if they were insects or birds because they deffinately don't flock like geese! All I knew was I couldn't help but watch them as they flew (or swarmed) from one bush to the next, and that I loved them. But man, if you want your berries to last, good luck with those fellas! They will clear it in less than 30 seconds!

GREAT pictures... I'm all excited now. SPRING!
Kyla Feschuk said…
LOL ..... how interesting that I also had the opportunity to photograph this marvel the other day. Spring is on it's way! (Thank goodness, because it has been a hard winter.)

Awesome shots BTW.
Kyla :)
I love these birds! The swarming is definitely a sight to see.

My Dad had Queen Anne cherry trees in his backyard and as the summer progressed and the cherries began to fall and ferment, we had our share of drunk birds hitting the house too. LOL
Hope Walls said…
I usually get to have them visit every year once or twice, but I usually don't manage to have my camera handy - as soon as I open the door to go grab it anc come back out, I spook them and off they go; this time they didn't startle when I went in adn came back out all loaded up with the 200mm. It was wicked.

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