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Cedar Waxwing
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Handsome Is As Handsome Does - Eldon Greij
The sleek and handsome Cedar Waxwing is one of the most welcome avian visitors. Its silky plumage sometimes defies seeing individual feathers.
Description
The cedar waxwing has a western cousin, the Bohemian waxwing, which has a similar plumage but is gray on the belly, rusty under the tail and has small white and yellow markings in the wings.
Both have a yellow terminal tail bar. The yellow color results from the pigment carotene that is produced by plants and taken in when feeding.
In recent years, waxwings with orange terminal tail bars have appeared because the birds have fed on exotic honeysuckle fruits which have a different carotene pigment.
Waxwing Red Tips Another unusual plumage marker is the red waxy
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Birds with red-tipped secondaries breed earlier than those without and generally rear more young. Red tips, therefore, probably are important signals for mate selection, functioning as "badges" to designate fitness of individual birds.
Waxwings are very social and usually travel in flocks. Rarely does one see a single bird. Their high-pitched twittering is a dead give away for those with fine-tuned hearing.
Feeding Habits
The Cedar Waxwing diets are about 80% fruit. They were namedAs the supply of slow-growing red cedars dwindled due to their value as fence posts (resistant to rot), storage chests (repellent to insects) and the main wood for pencils, waxwing diets became more varied.
They typically feed near the tips of fruit-bearing branches --- often hanging upside down to pluck favorites such as cherries, crabapples and hawthorn fruits which are high in sugar content.
Waxwings are susceptible to intoxication, especially when several warm days follow a cold frost. The cold causes cells in the fruit to burst, and yeast works on the mash converting sugar to alcohol. There are numerous records of birds flying out of control from the effects of alcohol.
Sometimes, when waxwings are lined up on a branch, the bird nearest the fruit cluster will pass fruit to its neighbor, which in turn, may pass it on down the line.
Raisins and small pieces of chopped apple may bring waxwings to feeders.
Nesting Habits
Late Nest Builders Waxwings generally nest later in the summer than most songbirds since they synchronize hatching with fruit development.Both sexes bring nest material but females do most of the nest building, lay 4 or 5 pale blue or blue-gray eggs with black or gray blotches and incubate them for 12 days. Nestlings spend another 13 days in the nest before fledging. 1 - 2 broods raised.
Habitat and Migration
Waxwings breed across North America from the lower tier of Canadian provinces south to the northern gulf states. Their primary wintering site is in the southern U.S., but the species is nomadic and irruptive.Consequently they can be found anyplace in the United States and sometimes as far south as Costa Rica during the winter. Typically waxwings gather for fall migration in August, and migration continues through October.
Keep your eyes on the neighborhood fruit trees. Regardless of the time of year a flock of cedar waxwings can drop in at any moment.
Credit: Eldon Greij, founding editor of Birder's World magazine now is president of Avian Enterprises.
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