Sunday, June 12, 2011

I Spy

The other evening, when the sun was just hitting that magic moment, in photography terms, I looked up.



There was a great fluttering and chirping in the apple trees.


Was it bees?  No, but if you look closely you can see a bee bottom stuck in a blossom.


It was, obviously, a flock of cedar waxwings.


It was a pretty unbelievable sight.


What were they doing up there?  I was willing to bet they were eating bugs.


But on closer inspection - ' excuse me, it appears there's something stuck in your beak'


They were actually eating apple blossoms.  

Well there's something I didn't know before.

*I can't take credit for these photos.  Hubby is responsible for this amazing bit of photography today.



13 comments:

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

What a lucky catch to see those Cedar Waxwings. They are such pretty birds. Eating the blossoms?? Silly birds.

Gardeningbren said...

I can share in this same delight...when visiting Faye's garden last week, the exact same thing happened! A flock of Waxwings landed in her apple tree and were flying back and forth, eating the blooms and also eating the berries on her holly. It was just the most wonderful sight! So glad to share that with you. Great photos!! I too didn't know they ate apple blossoms.

Christine @ The Gardening Blog said...

What lovely photographs of such pretty birds! What a joy to have these in your garden.

Laurrie said...

I hope those hungry waxwings know that they won't have apples to eat later in the season if they devour all the apple blossoms. (I'm sure there are plenty --- and what a fascinating sight to see! They must want the rich nectar in the blossoms)

HolleyGarden said...

Interesting. I have only seen these beautiful birds one year when they passed through, devouring my crab apple berries. Gorgeous pics.

Michelle said...

Great shots! They're such a pretty bird, don't you think?

The ones that came to visit our yard were interested in the crab apple blossoms. I'm sure they were to be found in our apples trees, also.

Jane said...

Well that's a new one on me - eating the apple blossoms! Such gorgeous birds - not ones I see around here. Enjoyed looking for bee's bottom:)

Unknown said...

What great photos. Hopefully, they were just thinning the blossoms for you -- leaving the right amount for apples later.

PJ | Home and Garden Decor said...

Beautiful pictures!
we don't have the cedar waxwings down here in our area but about 6 weeks ago I watched a flock of birds in my garden and I had no clue what they are. I had never seen or heard them before in our neighborhood and for sure not a big flock like that. So I looked up my bird identification book and I found out it was a flock of waxwings, obviously on their migrating trip up North.
Happy Gardening and Best Regards from Texas
Paula Jo

The Witch said...

They are such beautiful birds.
They remind me of raccoons with there masked faces.
I didn't realize that they like to eat the Apple blossoms.
Learn something new everyday.
Thanks for sharing the wonderful pictures.

Island Threads said...

welcome back Marguerite, I'm just catching up, your apple blossom photos are beautiful in the second previous post, glad to read you have achived a lot in the garden it is good to finally get out there, love the waxwing photos in this post, over here we have starlings that eat flowers and I think use some petals to line their nest as I sometimes see them fly off with a mouthful of petals, sorry about your black spot lilac hope you can get it sorted out and about your plants, when I mail order I keep the box in a cool place and open as soon as possible, standing up the plants and watering as necessary, could the dryness be due to the post taking a long time, Frances

Marguerite said...

Janet - my sentiments exactly, silly birds.

Bren - How lucky we are to have seen the same sight. I never saw this last year so this must not be a regular thing?

Christine - welcome! we are so fortunate this year to see these birds, a new addition for us. I hope they continue to return.

Laurrie - our first thought was, should we shoo them away? But we have so many trees and so many apples, I'm sure there will be more than enough for everybody.

Holley - this is our first time seeing these birds here so I'm not sure this is a regular place for them to be. We're counting ourselves lucky that they decided to visit us now.

Marguerite said...

Michelle - he did a darn good job didn't he? Got out the extra long lens for those pictures.

Jane - I thought that photo was hilarious. The bird seems to be eyeing up the bee wondering what he's doing.

Tufa - I have no worries about how many blooms they took really. We still have apples in the freezer from last year!

Paula Jo - Welcome! I didn't realize these birds migrated. That makes sense why we're just seeing them now. Maybe our apple orchard was just a pit stop on their trip.

Witch - I hadn't thought of it, but you're right, those little masks are very much like raccoons!

Frances - I'm sorry to say the company in question has a store which I've visited and their plants are all quite dry even in store. It just seems to be the way they sell them. It works reasonably well for some plants but others suffer from the hard treatment. There was one plant I really wanted but had read it would not survive the drying conditions of mail order so resisted ordering it. Of course I didn't help the situation by dry roasting the iris.