Cedar Waxwing

By way of introduction, let me first make a confession. I'm not that into music. Now, I don't mean I dislike music, I just mean I'm not as into it as most people appear to be. People I know, at least. My wife, for example, turns on music when she's working, when she's cooking , when she's driving, when she's just hanging out alone, or when we have company. She goes out to see live music, shares music with her friends, plays an instrument, and generally thinks of music as an important part of her life. She's fairly representative of the people I know.   

Music doesn't occupy the same place for me. I like it, I enjoy listening to it, but I don't want it on all the time in the background. When I listen to music in the car, which really isn't that often, it's because I want to listen to a particular song or two or three. Most of the time if my radio is on, it's tuned to news. I've started enjoying podcasts to occupy my commute (I've listened to every single episode of Radiolab, including all the shorts). But more often than not, I drive in silence. I listen to traffic, the road noise, and my own thoughts. I talk to myself. 

And I'll never listen to music outside. If I'm going to ride my bike or walk around or go for a hike, I would no sooner strap on an iPod and ear buds than I would strap on, well, a strap-on. It's just going to be a distraction. I want to hear what's actually there, not a recording of something that happened in a studio far away a long time ago.  I want to hear the hammers of some guys re-roofing my neighbor's house. I want to know when the biker down the street is working on his chopper. I want to hear the dads teaching their kids to ride their bikes.

I want to hear the birds.

Which brings me to the Cedar Waxwing.  

They live further north, up around Canada. But they will winter in California. I don't think I've ever seen them until this month. A couple weeks ago I saw a small, tightly grouped flock of birds about the size of sparrows bank and light in my neighbor's tree. They had pretty lemon-yellow bellies. I had no clue what they were.

Last Tuesday, before work, they were in the tree directly in front of my house. Dozens of them. We had left my camera at my sister-in-law's house, and they were too high up to get with my phone. I grabbed the binoculars and they were amazing. White-rimmed black mask, chestnut head and crest. a gray back and those lovely yellow tummies. Seriously, my pictures don't do them justice. For some reason, I just assumed they were Cedar Waxwings, although for the life of me I can't tell you why. I looked it up on my iBird app, and sure enough, that's what they were. When I saw they only winter here (and it was late February already), I got very anxious I'd miss my chance to get pictures.  Luckily, they were still coming around by the weekend when I got my camera back.

They get their name from little red spots on the tips of their wings that look like drops of sealing wax. (The "Waxwing" part. They get the "Cedar" part from the fact that they eat the berries of the Eastern Red-cedar, a type of juniper.)  You can see the little bright red spots on the backs of a few of the birds above, but the picture below is probably the best example I was able to get.

I spent a few days trying to get better pictures of them. They perch so high up, it's hard to get a good angle on them, even with the long zoom. (I also learned the hard way that if you go up on your roof with a big telephoto lens, the neighbor lady behind your house is going to make nasty assumptions about you.)  They are mostly fructivores, and apparently they like the little berries that grow in the tree in front of my house. (I read that if the berries only grow at the ends of branches, they'll pass them on down the line so all the birds can have some. How cute is that?)

Anyway, back to music. I'd been looking for the Waxwings for a few days, and the easiest way to find them is to listen. They have a variety of pretty whistles that don't sound anything like the other more common birds around here. A growing part of my enjoyment of bird watching is listening. When you are aware of the birds, seeking them out, there's a musical world all around. Sparrows and finches chirping in the cypress. Mourning Doves cooing in the grass. Hummingbirds buzzing and twittering in the flowers. The Red-tailed Hawk pair screeching from high above in the blue. And, sometimes, if you're lucky and it's winter in California, a tree full of Waxwings singing a brand new song.

Cedar Waxwings, February 18 and 23, 2013. shot with the Nikon and 500 mm zoom on a tripod from my driveway and sidewalk.  Identified on iBird Plus.