Oh coffeemom, how exciting. I saw a flock ONCE in my backyard on a snowy day in Cincinnati. What a thrill.

My mother used to hang bird pictures in my bedroom. As I entered the angst of the teen years, I would remove the pictures and put them under my bed only to find them days later once again gracing the wall of my room.

Mother had the last laugh because now I too grab the binocs to see what's singing from the tree and enthuse about the new bird I've seen.

Thanks for the heads up, Kristi! Yes, I know what you mean about hearing them. That's how I usually find them, too, as they have a very distinctive chittering sort of sound they make. (I hope I can still hear them this year, but I've lost a lot of high-frequency sounds. Everyone was enjoying listening to a catbird yesterday at Emeralda Marsh, and I couldn't hear a thing!)

Waxwings are so beautiful! They look like satin, they are so smooth. Beautiful markings on their faces, and that little dot of red is cool, isn't it?

They have an endearing habit of sitting on a line or branch and taking a berry and passing it down the line, one bird to the other, with the last one getting to eat it.

Hope I see some soon.

Pictures for those of you who have never seen one or don't know what they look like:

You can see in this picture that what looks like a small red spot on the feathers (in the photo above) is actually a tipping of a heavier type on the ends of certain feathers. That's the "wax" of "waxwing." It reminded early settlers of the sealing wax that was used on envelopes.

For more info, including songs, check out the link below. These are lovely birds and watching flocks of them come through on migration is a lot of fun.

Marcia

Here is a link that might be useful: Cedar Waxwing Info & Song