Bohemian Waxwings Close-ups Finally!

After months of trying, I finally got close-up shots of Bohemian Waxwings today.

Distinguishing features for the Bohemian Waxwing, include a gray breast, and the underside of the tail is a reddish-brown.

The frozen fruit bandits, Bohemian Waxwings in a Crab Apple Tree.

When I saw this flock land a few houses down the street, I grabbed my coat and the new camera, on the way out the door. To get shots closer than this one, I had to start wading through thigh deep snow.

Bohemian Waxwings have a white bar and a yellow strip on each wing. (Cedar Waxwings do not have either of these markings.) At the tip of each white wing bar, there are four very small scarlet red feathers. Unfortunately, the markings are so fine, the beauty can only be appreciated up close.

This message was edited Feb 17, 2007 10:12 PM

By the time I got close enough to take this shot, my shoes were full of snow and my pants were wet to the knee. I was cold, but I had spent over two months trying to get close to a flock.

Congratulations! Your effort has paid off with great shots of a beautiful bird! Thanks for sharing!

I was able to spend ten minutes taking 39 pictures of the Bohemian Waxwings, before they flew. It was a good thing they flew because my legs where turning numb by the time I got back in the house.

Early in the season the Bohemian Waxwings feed mostly on Mountain Ash berries. Now they are feeding on any fruit still available.

Beautiful, thanks for sharing these pics.

Fabulous! Sorry your legs got numb, but in my opinion, well worth it!!! Of course it was YOUR legs, not mine! The Bohemian Waxwing is gorgeous - so much color. Those truly are outstanding photos.

Thanks so much Gras and Congratulations! The pics are awesome!

Beautiful pictures. I did not know that they were not a migratory bird.

What can you plant or buy to encourage them to your yard?

Land in the far northwest of North America, northern Europe or northern Asia ;-)
Their normal southeastern limit in the US (map in Sibley Guide) is Colorado to Michigan and Maine, though occasional individuals will go further south with Cedar Waxwing flocks.

Otherwise, they like (first choice) rowan, (second choice) hawthorn, crabapple, viburnum, cotoneaster. Anything with red berries up to a maximum of about 1cm diameter; the juicier the better (which is why juicy rowan berries are preferred to drier hawthorn berries). They will also peck holes in larger fruit (e.g. orchard apples).

Resin

Thanks, Resin for the info

Great pics! We had almost 4000 Bohemians here in late December-early January...they cleaned out our bumper rowan crop...along with the many ribins. Then they disappeared overnight. Guess it will be next December before they appear again (mind you they do not appear every year).

Spectacularly beautiful birds. Thanks for those photos.

Gras, looks like it was worth the wait because these photos are wonderful. Amazing what we will go through to get the perfect picture. Thanks for showing them to us.

Kim

What wonderful shots! I can just picture you going back to the house with numb legs but thrilled with the "booty" in your camera! Thanks for sharing with us.

Exciting capture for sure!!! Wonderful shots...thanks for working so hard to enable us to see those beauties!

Yowee! I thought I was doing well when I had 500 a couple of winters ago . . . (December 2003, actually)

Resin

Thanks everyone for all the nice comments. I had to search the plant files to learn that "Rowan Trees" are what we call European Mountain Ash, Sorbus aucauparia. They have escaped cultivation in parts of Alaska, because the Bohemian Waxwings are dispersing the seeds. The native Mountain Ash, Sorbus sitchenaia, is slower growing, and more of a scrubby bush, which is seldom used for landscaping. The European one is very commonly used for landscaping in this area. Both species are the primary winter food of the Bohemians. There is some concern about the spread of this non native species.

Todd, I have seen flocks of thousands, so many they look like rapidly moving gray clouds. During a blizzard in January, the mass migration came though Anchorage this year. There were so many birds they ate nearly all of the Mount Ash berries in the entire area, in only three days, and moved on. I was very disappointed the weather wasn't fit to get any photos at the time.

Hi Grasmussen,

Rowan is a generic name for any of the pinnate-leaved species in the genus Sorbus. It is better than 'mountain ash' as it is unique, avoiding confusion with ashes (genus Fraxinus). Botanically, 'Mountain Ash' correctly refers to Fraxinus texensis.

Resin

Grasmussen, excellent photos of the Bohemian Waxwing. I have never seen one. One was sighted here in Maryland back in 2004. Do you get Cedar Waxwings, also ? If so, at the same time ? I think I read where they do inter-breed ....

Excellent, really great photos.