WINTER BACKYARD BIRDS (U.S. AND CANADA)

Cedar Waxwing

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Bombycilla Cedrorum

Cedar Waxwing

Adults have buffy-brown head, breast and back, and narrow black mask bordered with white, extending from the lores to the rear of the eyes where it ends into a point with black chin.

Their brown color turns to pale yellow on belly, to gray-brown on back, and to slate-gray on the rump and upper tail coverts.

They have brilliant-red wax droplets on their wing feathers and a small cluster of red wax-like droplets on tips of secondary flight feathers. Their tail is barred yellow and under tail feathers are white. Their legs and feet are black.

Males and females look alike.

Juveniles have streaked throat, breast, and flanks. Their belly and under tail coverts are dull white or yellow, and a restricted black mask, and more white on the cheeks and the rear of the eyes.

BILL: black, short and broad.

SIZE: medium-sized birds approximately 6 – 7 inches in length.

WEIGHT: weighing roughly about 30 grams.

COLOR: buffy-brown, black, white, yellow, gray-brown, slate gray, and brilliant red.

Berries and sugary fruit year-round, including "dogwood, serviceberry, cedar, juniper, hawthorn, and winterberry", and insects.

Open woodlands, fallow lands, farmlands, dump, and urban gardens, and along streams.

Southern Canada, from South-east Alaska and northern British Colombia to Central Ontario, and southern Quebec (during summer). Southwards in Maryland and Virginia, and in mountains, from southern to northern Georgia, from the northern United States to northern California. (during breeding).

They utter distinctive calls, buzz, a high- pitched trill “tsiii”. Pitch, duration and frequency variations are closely related to courtship, contact and begin calls. They also have a high-pitched, sharp and prolonged whistle, given by the flock when they take off or land.

NEST: The female builds a bulky cup out of bark, leaves, grass, rootlets, moss and sometimes mud. She lines the interior with soft materials and placed in fruiting tree, at about 1.50 meters above the ground.

EGGS: 3 - 5 grayish-blue eggs.

INCUBATION: 12 - 14 days, female only (fed by male).

They are very sociable during the migrations and in winter. They typically feed while perched on a twig, but they are also good at grabbing berries while hovering briefly below a bunch. They have a strong, steady flight style and fairly constant wingbeats.