When I got to the house after picking my car up from the garage, I found a large flock of Cedar Waxwings in the hackberry tree in the neighbors’ front yard. The birds flew down en masse to drink some street water and then flew back up into the tree again. I knew they were around, but I hadn’t been able to get any photos of them until today. I always keep my camera in the car with me and snapped off a bunch of photos and a little bit of video. I think they’re such handsome birds. It was a nice treat to be able to see them so close by.

According to the All About Birds website: The name “waxwing” comes from the waxy red secretions found on the tips of the secondaries of some birds. The exact function of these tips is not known, but they may help attract mates… The birds’ name derives from their appetite for cedar berries in winter; they also eat mistletoe, madrone, juniper, mountain ash, honeysuckle, crabapple, hawthorn, and Russian olive fruits. In summer Cedar Waxwings supplement their fruit diet with protein-rich insects including mayflies, dragonflies, and stoneflies, often caught on the wing. They also pick items such as scale insects, spruce budworm, and leaf beetles directly from vegetation.