Cedar Waxwings in the Marsh

Today I am continuing my series on the tidal marsh behind our yard by showing some of the bird visitors we had over the weekend.  This past Sunday I introduced the marsh including a time-lapse video of the tide coming in and out and Monday I had a few macro shots of the hackberry tree starting to leaf out and flower.  Today I will join Tuesday's Tweets and World Bird Wednesday with some photos of Cedar Waxwings that visited a tree across the creek from us.

Saturday afternoon while I was preparing to make cookies, my wife came in and told me there were some interesting birds out in the marsh.  I followed her back out  there and in the trees across the creek from our pier were about 25 Cedar Waxwings.  They are very beautiful birds with a bright yellow terminal band on the tail, a small red spot at the end of some of the wing feathers and a very smooth greyish-brown plumage.  They also generally flock in large groups.  It is rare to see just one or two at a time.  This wasn't the first time we had seen them from our yard but they are infrequent visitors.  Definitely less than once a year.  They were sitting in an oak tree and then as a group they would flock to a nearby holly tree and feed on the berries for a few minutes before returning as a group to the oak.

On Sunday, I was out on the pier taking some landscape photos on the marsh (check back on Friday for some of those) when I saw the Waxwings again.  This time there were at least 50.  By the time I put my long lens on the camera, another group of 20 or more joined in.  By this time the holly tree was nearly bare but there were still small groups that would go over and eat the remaining berries.  Some would even hover for a second to grab at berries that were hard to perch by.

I hope you enjoy the photos and check back again for more photos of the marsh and the visitors.  I'm going to try to keep updates throughout the seasons to track the changes.