Restless waxwings

I am sure that when a Bohemian Waxing encounters a genuine birder, it alights nearby and allows a closeup photograph. With me, waxwings always arrive in great numbers at the top of a distant tree, flutter about for a while, decide that I am clearly unworthy and leave.

The Bohemian Waxwing is a winter bird around here. Others have been reporting it for some time, but I didn’t see any until this morning near Sitkum Creek where I played cat and mouse: I arrive, they leave; I move, they move. Well, that is just how waxwings behave: arrive in great numbers, start flying from branch to branch and if enough neighbours join in, take off for somewhere else and start all over again.

The Kootenay Lake website offers more pictures and a discussion of waxwings.

Some of their frenetic activity is evident in the three pictures below where at any given moment, a fair fraction of them are in the air merely flying to adjacent branches.

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3 Responses to Restless waxwings

  1. Judy says:

    Beautiful photos of these birds!

  2. Janna Perry says:

    I can tell by the exposure those were difficult photos to capture! Nicely done

    • Alistair says:

      Indeed, birds and trees silhouetted against a bright sky present a problem both with exposure (underexposed birds) and with discolouration (blending of tree and sky) in portions that are out of focus. Alas, the colour of the bluish sky in the background has been lost.

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