Cedar Waxwing

 The cedar waxwing is a robin sized songbird that is found in the northern United States and southern Canada. Birds that breed in the northern US are typically year round residents while birds that breed in Canada often migrate south to the US, Mexico and Central America for the winter. Waxwings get their name from the red waxy substance that forms on the tips of some birds wings. Their are two species of waxwings in North America the cedar waxwing and the more northerly bohemian waxwing.

 Cedar waxwings eat mostly fruit. They typically eat the entire fruit discarding the seeds through their mute. Cedar waxwings get their name because they also eat the cones and berries of eastern red cedar, especially during the winter months when other fruits are not available. Sometimes they have been found intoxicated by eating fruit that has sat too long and  started to ferment. During the summer they will also supplement their diet with insects that they catch on the wing or glean from trees. The bird in the photo above is a first year bird while the one in the top photo is a mature adult.

Cedar Waxwing

Wordless - Cedar Waxwing

Cedar Waxwing

Cedar Waxwing

Cedar Waxwing

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.

Camera Critters: Cedar Waxwing

There are two types of waxwings that can be found in North America, the bohemian waxwing, which is found mostly in Alaska and Canada except during the winter when it will migrate down to the northern portions of the US, and the smaller cedar waxwing. The only other waxing in the world is the Japanese waxwing which is found in Asia. Waxwings get their name from the red waxy tips that they have on their secondary feathers. You can see the red tips in both of these pics.

The cedar waxwing can be found inhabiting the northern part of the US as well as southern Canada. Birds that breed in the northern portion of their range will migrate south as far as the northern portions of South America. Cedar waxwings are primarily berry feeders eating a wide variety of types of berries. During the winter they often can be seen eating cedar berries, which is how they got their name. On some occasions they have been known to get drunk by eating berries that have stood around so long that they have fomented. Besides berries they will also catch and eat insects to supplement their diet. I photographed this cedar waxwing last September out on Park Point in Duluth, MN.

Wild River Birding

Wild River State Park, located along the St Croix River north of St Paul and Minneapolis, can probably be considered the first park that I ever birded in as an adult. In my younger days I spent a lot of time working. In the mid 90s I was working a full time job and a part time job and trying to run my own family entertainment business, for which I did 99% of the work myself. I had very little time for anything but work and Michelle, my wife, but a few times a year I would get a weekend off, these usually came in September, January or February which were the slow times for my business. Michelle and my wedding anniversary is in September so one year we went up north for our anniversary. While we were in an info center in Duluth we read that a good place to view eagles in the wild was Wild River State Park. Since I had been into nature as a kid I thought that it would be cool to see an eagle so we decided to stop off at Wild River on our way back home. The day that we stopped the sun was shinning and the temps were in the upper seventies. We spent the next day laying on a sand bar on the shores of the St Croix searching the skies overhead for eagles. We had so much fun that we returned several more times that fall. Later that year I decided that I could not continue working so much, so I went back to school got some certification and in 1998 took the job that I am working at today. I still work a lot but I do take time now to enjoy nature and my life and then come here to share the experience with you.
We returned to Wild River frequently over the next few years but as I learned of other places to bird our trips there decreased. I did make one trip to Wild River in August (8-24) of 2008 and I saw a few interesting birds. There were a few cedar waxwings travelling up the shore of the St Croix, probably searching for berries to eat.
The American redstart is a wood warbler that usually hangs around southern Minnesota around the summer time instead of heading further north. Like most warblers they are insect eaters which is a good thing to be around Wild River where there are a lot of insects, don't forget the mosquito repellent if you visit.
The most exciting bird that I found on this trip was this scarlet tanager. Scarlet tanagers are not uncommon in Minnesota, except in the winter, but since they often stay near the tree tops they are sometimes difficult to find and even harder to photograph.
This tanager was in the middle of molting from his summer breeding colors to his winter coloration. Males in the breeding season turn a bright red with black wings. In nonbreeding plumage the male looks similar to the female and is olive green in color.
Scarlet tanagers spend their winter down in South America. While they are down in South America they will forage with flocks of other types of tanagers and flycatchers.

Birding Maplewood Nature Center

Over the summer I did quite a bit of birding at the Maplewood Nature Center. Near the boardwalk that crosses over the lake there is a small island that always seemed to be teeming with birdlife. On July 31st I stopped in and took the following pics.
I am not 100% sure what type of flycatcher that this is but my guess is that it is an olive-sided flycatcher. It was always pretty easy to find several types of flycatcher perched on the trees, that were growing on the island, waiting for a meal to fly by.
The eastern kingbird is another member of the flycatcher family. An interesting fact about eastern kingbirds, according to the Cornell website, is that when they migrate to South America during the winter they are mostly fruit eaters.
Another bird that eats mainly insects in the summer and fruit in the winter was also hanging around, although cedar waxwing are not members of the flycatcher family.
There was also a consistent amount of waterfowl that hung around the lake through out the summer. These were mainly mallards, wood ducks and female hooded mergansers.
The male hooded merganser are usually no where to be found after the breeding season. Once the eggs are laid the male leaves the female hoody to incubate them on her own, which is why we typically only see the females by late summer. Once the eggs hatch the chicks will be able to swim and catch food with in 24 hours. The female will continue to stay with the young, and show them where to find food, for a few weeks but she will leave them even before they can fly, at about 70 days. I tend to see a good number of hoodies around the parks where I live each summer. This is probably do to the number of wood duck boxes that people have put up in the area. Hoodies are cavity nesters and will often nest in wood duck boxes.

Birding Makes a Return at the Bass Ponds

If you are a fairly new visitor to Ecobirder you might be a bit confused. After all with a name like Ecobirder you are probably expecting to see pictures of birds, instead of all of the insects that I have been posting lately. That is why we, Michelle helped to chose the name, called it Ecobirder because the eco part represents all of the non-birding nature pics that I post. However, how about if I post some bird pics that I shot at the Bass Ponds in July so you bird purists out there do not totally walk out on me.
While I was traveling around the ponds, checking the trees for passerines and the tall grass for butterflies and dragons, a double-crested cormorant made a big splash on the scene.
The double-crested cormorant is the most widely seen cormorant in North America. Where most cormorants are only found near the coast the double-crested cormorant are found in large numbers on inland lakes and water ways. The double-crested cormorant was listed as a species of special concern by the Audubon Society back in the 70's but since then there numbers have exploded. This increase in population has caused conflict with fisheries, who claim that the cormorants eat their fish as well as some park management, fecal matter from nests has a tendency to kill trees.
The sudden arrival of the cormorant startled a great egret who was fishing on the pond, either that or the guy with the big camera eye staring at it.
The great egret is a member of the heron family and is found across much of the world. The great egret, like many members of the heron family, was decimated by plume hunters in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They rebounded after federal laws were put in place to protect them. Today the great egret is the symbol of the National Audubon Society.
All of the racket over at the pond, what with that prima donna symbol of the Audubon Society and the paparazzi photographing it, caught the attention of a cedar waxwing that was trying to take a snooze.
The cedar waxwing gets its name from the red, waxy appearing, tips on some of the secondaries. The tips are clearly visible in both photos above. The purpose of the red tips is not known for sure however some believe that they may come into play during mate selection. Cedar waxwings are berry eaters and can get intoxicated from eating fermented berries.

Some Dodge for you while I drive

I apologize for my lack of witty reporte on this post and the last. I am leaving shortly for a short trip and have been trying to get things taken care of so that I can leave. I will try and blog a bit while I am traveling. This will depend on the Internet connections at hotels and how much time that I have when I am not out shooting. Here are some more pics from Dodge Nature Center for you to enjoy while I drive.

eastern phoebe
cedar waxwing

house wren
sora
painted turtle

Snowy Owl at Tamarack Nature Center

The weather has been quite depressing for the last couple of weeks. Yesterday was no different. Since the forecast called for grey skies, all day, and since I had to work my second job that evening I decided not to bring my camera with me to work. I had some projects that I needed to work on so I brought my notebook instead. Of course when ever I don't have my camera with me some cool photo opportunity has to pop up.


This opportunity came in the form of an e-mail from the MOU list server that reported that a snowy owl had been spotted perched at Tamarack Nature Center. I had never been to Tamarack Nature Center before so I looked up directions and as soon as I finished work I ran home grabbed my gear and headed off to White Bear Lake. When I arrived there where already quite a few photographers there taking pictures of the bird. The light was terrible and the bird was not very cooperative but I was happy just to have a chance to get some snowy owl pics. It is a pretty good bet that this bird was a female, although it is possible that this was an immature male. Male snowy owls start out barred and lose the barring becoming more white as they age.
Female snowies remain barred through out their lifetime. Although it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between immature males and both immature or mature females the immature male can often be identified by a white bib and white on the back of their head.

Snowy owls have gained some notoriety over the past few years thanks JK Rowling and the Harry Potter movies. In the Harry Potter series Harry has a snowy owl named Hedwig. In the movies Hedwig is played by a male snowy owl even though Hedwig is a female, coincidentally my late grandmothers name was Hedwig.

Snowy owls spend their summers up on the Arctic tundra. They nest on the ground and will fiercely defend the nest. During the winter they may or may not migrate south depending on the food source which is mainly lemmings and other rodents. When they migrate snowy owls will typically migrate into Canada, northern Europe, northern Asia, and the northern US. When their food sources are scarce they may irrupt even further south, snowies have been reported as far south as Texas.

There have been predictions, earlier this year, that because of extreme draught conditions in Canada this past summer that the seed crop will be low. This may effect the rodent population, which count on seeds as a primary food source. A decline in the rodent population may force owls to migrate south and trigger an owl irruption in some of the northern states of the US. The last irruption in Minnesota was in 2004-2005 when we saw great grey owls in the thousands. Seeing a snowy this far south this early in the winter might be a fluke then again it might be a portent of what we might see this winter.

While I was shooting the snowy owl I noticed a flock of cedar waxwing in the tree above me. Since I think that waxwings look cool I decided to turn my camera on them for a few minutes while the owl was being uncooperative.I think that they were waiting for me to get out of the way because I was standing next to some small bushes on the side of the visitors center that were loaded with orange berries. Cedar waxwings are native to North America and are predominately berry eaters. So during the winter they will migrate where ever they can find a good cache of berries.