One Jackdaw Birding: Cedar Waxwing

Showing posts with label Cedar Waxwing. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

"I was the shadow of the waxwing slain....."

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

Flying into the azure reflection of the sky and so transcending

the finality of the Waxwings catastrophic end... These lines colored

for me my first reading of Nabokov's novel "Pale Fire" many

years ago and do so now again. Back then I didn't know a
waxwing or seen one, but the name spoke to me
of wild birds in wild woods.

For a short spell they have come south for a visit, the

Cedar and the Bohemian Waxwings, having probably grazed

clean every fruit tree north of here and have settled on some

ornamental crab apple trees at the side of a busy thoroughfare,

but just for a day because the next morning the trees were

empty and the birds gone.

They were picking the last of the dropped fruit from the pavement

Happy Birding! Happy Spring!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Midwinter Waxwings and other birds

Another cold but bright day yesterday. I was walking around on the Putney School campus looking for the flock of Bohemian Waxwings that had been reported there earlier in the week. At one point I saw a flock of about 20 birds flying past and knew they were Bohemians, not just by their undulating flight but also by their contact sounds, a soft constant rippling trill. They briefly settled on a tall tree near me and then were gone again, not to be seen again. A student pointed me to an apple tree where they had been spotted before. I only found a lone Winter Robin picking away at a frozen apple.

In the same neighborhood near a feeder I spotted this little bright-eyed house sparrow all puffed up against the cold.

Eventually I gave up and drove home. I consoled myself with going over photos of Bohemians I had taken two years earlier during an irruptive year. Now having software with better noise removal, less intrusive sharpening and better color rendition, I set about to rework the originals. The results are posted below.

This was a large group of Bohemians, some basking in the warm winter sun, others foraging in the crab apple trees or on the ground underneath.

On another occasion, when the sun was not as bright and colors more muted, I saw a smaller flock in a row of crab apple trees.

I don't give up easily. I went back on the campus today. Walking was more treacherous as many of the walkways were iced over despite having been sanded. I had to take a picture of the fantastic icicles hanging from the roof of a cabin.

Still no Bohemians, but found a small flock of Cedar Waxwings foraging in an apple tree.