Cedar Waxwing

I was surprised to see a fair number of Cedar Waxwings at Fernhill Wetlands this past Saturday. I shouldn't have since my field guides show them as year round residents, but I don't recall seeing any last fall or winter. There was a small flock at Dabbler's Marsh when I first arrived and then later while walking Dabbler's Marsh Trail, I ran into a flock of probably 20 - 30 birds in a tree.
It was around 2:00 in the afternoon which may have been why they were less flighty than normal, then again, they had young with them and I've found that the adults tend to stick close by while their curious young check me out.

The adult above is going through a molt as you can see the unevenness of the red waxy tips of its secondaries and the unevenness of the yellow tips of its tail feathers.

As I mentioned, there quite a few first year birds in the flock. They were the most active, reminding me a bit of Golden-crowned Kinglets the way they would hang from branches and hover in the air as they picked berries. (Anyone know what kind of tree this is?)

This young bird is also going through a molt. It looks as though it may have no more than one or two tail feathers left.

Cedar Waxwing

I found these Cedar Waxwings flycatching over Cedar Perch Pond at Fernhill Wetlands a couple of weeks ago. They would fly for a while then land to rest or eat their catch for a bit then go at it again. The one in the third image could use a bib. :-)
They are such a pretty bird!

Cedar Waxwing

Like I said in an earlier post, I saw a flock of Cedar Waxwings last Wednesday at TRNWR. I believe there was a mix of adults and juveniles as I saw this adult and one juvenile clearly, but the rest hung back in the trees out of plain sight.
This adult stayed out in front as if it were "keeping watch" on me. At one point it took time to eat some berries. I was busy taking pictures of it and didn't notice this interesting thing it did with the berry. It actually flipped the berry in the air and caught it again as you can see in the following two images.

The image information my camera embedded into the images reveals that this sequence of images were taken within 1 or 2 seconds. Yet another case of not knowing what I had until I got the pictures home on my computer.

Cedar Waxwing

I spent Monday morning at Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve. I hadn't been there since May 29th. Time sure flies. Not much had changed since then. The water levels were about the same. They had mowed the paths recently which was nice.
When I got to Pintail Pond I noticed something I hadn't seen before. Along with the swallows flying over the water catching insects, there were Cedar Waxwings doing the same.
I thought it might be a good opportunity to get a close shot of one of these pretty birds as I figured that they would have to rest at some point. So I sat down and waited, but they wouldn't land on any of the tall grasses along the pond, instead flying to the nearby groove of trees. I gave up on them after awhile and walked the back path until I returned to the pond at the shelter.
I sat there for awhile watching the Waxwings waiting for an opportunity. Still no luck, but then I noticed that they were landing on a nearby tree so I made my way over there and got a few pictures. Not bad, but still not as close as I would like.
Finally, I noticed that they were landing on some tall, dead, woody weeds to take momentary rests. This is what I was hoping for and the results are above.
The bottom two pictures are a couple I got of them flying over the water. In the bottom image note that its beak is open in preparation to catch a bug.

Cedar Waxwing

One of the first birds I came across Saturday morning at Jackson Bottom was a small flock of Cedar Waxwings. They were feeding on insects over the Tualatin River. They would spend some time perched on a branch of a large tree on the other side of the river and then fly out over the river to catch an insect before returning to a branch in the same tree. I took pictures of then while they were perched, switching from one to another until I noticed a couple on a branch partaking in some interesting behavior.

One (I would later learn it was the male), would start at end of the branch with an insect in its beak as seen below.It would then inch its way over to the other (the female) until they were side by side.

Finally, they would touch beaks as the male would offer the insect to the female.

They repeated this over a few times until, I read, that the female would take the offering from the male. It seems I experience and learn something new each time I venture out.