Sociable songbirds eat insects, berries
Their Latin name — Bombycilla cedorum — can be loosely translated as silk tails of the cedars.
When you see cedar waxwings descend en masse on your winterberry bush this winter, you will understand the silk tail part. They are birds as sleek as a vintage Porsche.
“They’re gorgeous,” said Margaret Robbins, owner of the Wild Bird Unlimited store in Brookfield. “They’re one of my favorites.”
“They are very subtle,” said Angela Dimmitt of New Milford, president of the Western Connecticut Bird Club, of the waxwing’s smooth wash of grays and warm browns and pale yellows. “And they have that mask.”
They are the only songbird in the region with a black mask — a narrow Lone Ranger mask that covers their eye — and a crest. They also have red daubs on their wings and a bright yellow stripe in their tail. They are classy.
Waxwings are extremely social birds — even when a pair nests, they have small territories, so other waxwings will nest nearby.
Dimmitt said she’s seen them in summer at the Wimisink Preserve in Sherman. Ken Elkins, community conservation manager for Audubon Connecticut, said he’s seen them at the Bent of the River nature center in Southbury, flying around catching insects.
But insects are only summer fare for waxwings. They are otherwise fruitarians
Because of that, they nest late in the summer, so there will be new crops of wild berries around when they have their hatchlings.
In late fall and winter, when nesting is over, they form big flocks — dozens, even hundreds of birds. These flocks move nomadically across the landscape, looking for whatever fruit is around. The cedar part of their name comes from flocking to feed on cedar berries.
When they find a source of food, they can clean up.
Robbins said along Federal Road in Brookfield, there’s a Rite-Aid, with a line of decorative crabapple trees in front.
For the past two or three autumns, running, she said, the waxwings have found them and feasted.
“Right here on Federal Road,” she said. “People left the store to go see them.”
Elkins said on the Christmas bird watch, he and other birders checked out a pond in Shelton, looking for waterfowl.
Instead, they found junipers jumping with cedar waxwings.
“We stopped counting at 25,” he said.
Because these flocks are nomadic, it’s hard to say where or when they may show up.
Nor is it possible to know where the birds are from.
Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society, said cedar waxwings nest from Newfoundland to British Columbia, south to the Rocky Mountains and down to Virginia on the East Coast.
When they move around in winter, he said, Connecticut birds may be moving south and birds from Canada and northern New England may be showing up here.
“Who knows?” he said. “They may be talking to birds from British Columbia.”
Comins said being part of a big flock helps in finding food in winter — when one bird spots a laden winterberry bush, the rest can follow. It’s also protection against predators.
The waxwing part of their name comes from waxy red secretions that show up on the tips of adult males — a feature unique to the species.
It’s a small family. Along with cedar waxwings, Bohemian waxwings are found in Eurasia and in the western U.S., and Japanese waxwings, in eastern Siberia, Korea and Japan.
Bohemian waxwings, which are bigger and even more striking than their cedar cousins, are an irruptive species. If their food crops fails in northwestern Canada and Alaska, they move east in winter, showing up in the High Plains states, and as far east as the Canadian Maritimes and Maine.
Rarely — very rarely — a few Bohemian waxwings will separate, swing south, and show up in southern New England, only to be faced with a flock of binocular-bearing birders.
“You have to scan flocks of cedar waxwings to see if there might be a Bohemian mixed in,” Comins said.
They are not a species in decline. Their populations seem to be stable, if not increasing.
This is because old agricultural fields are growing back to brush lots with wild vines and berries for food.
Robbins said it’s also because bird-lovers have got the message and are planting native, fruit-bearing species in their yards.
“Which is just marvelous,” she said.