Invasion of the Blossom-Eating Waxwings

The Cedar Waxwings show up in our yard each year just as the Saskatoon berries reach the perfect stage. They descend in large numbers and eat all the green berries they can hold, and if there are enough berries, they keep eating as they turn red, and if there are any they missed because they were hiding behind leaves, they get up early in the morning and eat them when they are purple. This, as you are no doubt aware, means there are never enough purple berries left for me to sprinkle on my cereal in the morning. This weekend, however, I found them in our yard a month early. So early that I wasn`t the only cold being. Note the round waxwing above, fluffings its feathers and trying to stay warm. No interest in eating, not till he warmed up, anyway. His friends were not so cold. And they were hungry. It takes a lot of flowers to fill the tummy of a migrating Cedar Waxwing.

Unwilling to compromise their plans to return later and eat my Saskatoons, however, this flock of 60+ Waxwings were all in my apple trees steadily eating blossoms.

Could be they`ve descended every year to eat our flowers, and I just missed them. Or maybe they only just learned how good apple blossoms taste.

The next day they were gone. I expect to see them back in two or three weeks. There should be green Saskatoons by then.