One of my favourite things about gardening and spending time outdoors is the opportunity to see new-to-me birds, insects, and other wildlife that I would have otherwise missed had I still maintained my old habits of sticking with primarily indoor hobbies and activities. While my two bird feeders are always busy with birds throughout the day, they are the usual birds that I see everyday, such as cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, and finches, which live in nearby hedges. So on the rare occasion that I see a bird species that I have never seen in my garden before or that is an infrequent visitor, I get really excited and try to get pictures so I can ID them later. The cedar waxwing is one such bird. In five years, I have only seen them twice in the trees around my garden, and they do not linger long before they fly off.
At first glance, the cedar waxwing seems like a plain bird. The main part of their body consists of various shades of beige with some black, but on closer inspection, they have a stunning lemon yellow belly and a band of yellow on their tail. They also have a small amount of red orange colouring on the tips of their wing feathers that is striking. These birds enjoy eating all sorts of berries, from blueberries to strawberries and even juniper berries. They balance out their diet with some insects at times.
Cedar waxwings can be found all across North America, but where I live, they are present only during their breeding season during the summer. The two times that I sighted the cedar waxwing, it was due to the strong yellow colouring on their belly. I didn’t see them eat any of the berries from my garden. Instead, they seemed to be resting on a tree branch on their way to somewhere else. While my sightings of birds new to my garden are relatively rare, I always keep a lookout when I am outside doing some gardening or enjoying the patio.
The Heron and Rose 