Since it was so nice outside today I decided to grab some fast food and sit in my truck and do some bird watching over lunch. The usual suspects were out and about in my backyard, grackles, starlings, finches, brown headed cowbirds. Even a crow flew past and landed in a nearby tree. He was promptly escorted by a handful of grackles away from what I suspect was a nest.
Then to my surprise I noticed a number of small birds sitting quietly in the bushes right next to the truck. They hid quite well in there, but as I started to see more of them around all the various branches I began to realize this was not a bird I have ever seen before.
Fortunately, I had a bird book in the center console of my truck so I paged through it. What are the odds of one finding the bird sitting in front of you in a book with a hundred or so pages? Somehow I practically jumped right to it and I looked at it in disbelief. A Cedar Waxwing!
I looked at the picture more and compared it to the real things 6 feet from me again and again. No doubt about it. A Cedar Waxwing.
Nice polite little birds I might add. Very quiet and civil. In fact they might have been there many times before, but they blend in so well and are so quiet you don’t really notice them. But when you do see one it is unbelievable how colorful and unusual their markings are.
Finally when a neighbor came over to see what I was watching they scattered. It was only then that I realized how many were actually hiding in there. I could only see about 5 or 6 at a time, but when they flew I would have to guess there were 25 or so.
#1 by Roger Halls on April 30th, 2009
Mark, very pretty bird. Hard to focus with all the branches in the foreground. Great pictures.
Roger
#2 by Mark Riutta on April 30th, 2009
Thanks Roger.
Yes, the branches made it very difficult to lock focus on the bird. Sometimes I got lucky and it locked on the bird. Other times I turned off the auto-focus and did it manually.
There were more visiting again today. They are eating the buds on the nearby trees. I’m guessing there had to be close to a hundred in the surrounding area. They hide so well in the trees, but when they fly you can’t miss them with the yellow on the end of the tail and red on the tip of the wings. They keep darting back and forth from tree to tree.
Mark