Friday, November 27, 2009

Cedar Waxwings at Carpenter Nature Center

Each Friday morning they band song birds at Carpenter Nature Center so whenever I have some time off on a Friday I try to stop over and check out what kind of birds that they are banding. Since today was a paid holiday at work I headed on over to Carpenter.
It just so happened that today was the forth Friday in November and on the forth Friday of each month the public is invited to come in and watch the banding and learn a little about the process. Since many other people had the day off because of the holiday it was a pretty busy morning. So instead of taking pictures I spent most of my time helping out doing interpretation on the nature center raptors for new visitors. Even so I do have these pictures of cedar waxwings that I took back at the end of October.
Often in the fall wherever you find fruit that is still on the trees you know that the cedar waxwing are probably not too far away. They are one of only a few birds in North America that can survive by eating only fruit for months at a time. They do have to be a bit careful though because sometimes the fruit will begin to ferment later in the year and they can become intoxicated from the alcohol. This last photo is an immature waxwing. You can tell by the streaking on the breast.

7 comments:

Martha said...

Beautiful photos!

My CC

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

Very pretty birds. Great pictures.

Jeanne said...

Beautiful series! Can't pick just one to favorite.

Adrienne Zwart said...

Great series!

Ladynred said...

Beautiful picture of birds.

Dirkjogt said...

Lovely pictures, like the last one the most while the bird is eating fruit.

Anonymous said...

What beauties! The immature waxwing with the berry is wonderful.