bohemian waxwing

The bohemian waxwings were out again in mass this past Sunday morning, few were enjoying the berries in the tree across the street.

This is another unusual visiter to my feeders and garden. A flock of them landed in a flowering cherry tree and quickly cleaned up all the berries.

I think this was the last time I saw Waxwings this season. Between them, some Starlings and Fieldfares that wintered over this year, and an eruption of Pine Grosbeaks that flew in for a while, it didn't take long before there were no berries left anywhere around town. Perhaps there were still...

I actually don't recall where I took this one. Somewhere along a walk I took in Trondheim that day, at some hedge I passed. Waxwings were all over town back then. Now they've pretty much gleaned what we had left in our gardens, so now they're a rarer sight.

some snowy day. Not seeing so many Waxwings around town any longer now, but back in January they were still regular visitors to the garden ... as long as a few berries remained on that apple bush. Sorry the DOF is pretty flat. Not easy to use a high f-stop in that dim winter light. That's one...

Adult male Waxwing

I've been baking pies all morning. About to put them in the oven again to brown the meringues, then it's off to dinner with friends. I'll have to do my browsing when I get home this evening.

I am truly humbled by and grateful for your kind comments on my Waxwing series, especially since most of you - perhaps all - take far better pictures than I.

Many Waxwings, and many photos. I'll be selective in what I post from this series. Maybe just one or two more tomorrow, then onwards. I need to get through my Winter pics soon. It's starting to get lighter here now. Birds are singing more, days are longer, and I'm getting some good shots.

on the crabapple shrub back home, though. So next day was another Waxwing day.

I'm glad I arrived when I did. By the time I left the campus, a few hours later, berries and waxwings were all gone.

These two have found a berry-bearing tree, I'm not sure what species.

Next day I had work to do at the campus. Before walking in, I made my usual stop at the abandoned garden by the bus stop. This is a garden still standing, now much overgrown, where a house burned down decades ago. Someone put up bird feeders there a couple of years ago now, and has been keeping...

standing still in one spot snapping shots of all those waxwings. So here's one last shot - this time against that cold blue sky - and starting tomorrow I'll share shots from later in the hike.

I'll find another one on the next tree over.

These two seem to be aiming for the same catkin.

If you insist on standing there, I might as well get back to eating.

Giving me a nasty look for interrupting his meal with my clicking and clacking.

The trees are always seedier on the other side of the street.

or more Bohemian Waxwings I encountered on my walk to the botanical garden that day. They were packing an avenue of nearly a dozen birch trees (with various shrubs in between) along the roadside, foraging birch seeds. Other pedestrians on that route stopped to gawk alongside me. I reported the...

When I'd finished my route, I realized I had time to do a bit more of the Lade peninsula trail, rather than take the shortcut through residential neighborhoods to the botanical garden cafe where we were to meet up and report. So I climbed the trail up the cliffs and over to the next bay before...

The twisting and stretching paid off.

As the berries become fewer and fewer on the shrub, the Waxwings perform more and more surprising contortions to get at them while perching in one spot.