If you also are 'easily entertained,' I would suggest visiting a park, open grassland, a forest edge or even a brushy garden to catch the out-migration happenings of the Cedar Waxwings.
Thousands of these sleek, svelte birds are leaving their breeding grounds in Canada and gorging on the abundance of berries along the route south.
They are not particularly skittish, but an ounce of patience is important. Binoculars will help, too.
If you see one, you may see a dozen. They travel in groups as they're social birds.
The adults are escorting their first-year young and showing them where food can be found along the way.
Cedar Waxwings are primarily fruit eaters. In addition to the fruits people eat, they also feast on juniper, ash, dogwood and honeysuckle berries.
You gotta go where the berries grow. Sometimes that's sideways, but no matter... this works!
A backyard flowering crabapple tree provides this juvenile sugary energy for the migration.
As fast as the tree relinquishes its fruit, they gobble them down whole.
The yellow-tipped tail and red-tipped secondary feather of the Cedar Waxwing are unique to waxwings.
There are three species of waxwings. The other two are the Bohemian Waxwing and the Japanese Waxwing of eastern Asia.
They all wear a bandit-like mask.
Not much is free in life, but bird entertainment is.
Allan
Credit:
Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds
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