The Bohemian Waxwing, our winter bird, not the rhapsody

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The Bohemian waxwing is a bird of far northern latitudes around the world.  These birds are found in the north and northwest, spending summers in Alaska and western Canada.  In winter, though, they move south and east, overlapping with the more common and widespread Cedar waxwing, with flocks reaching the Atlantic coast in eastern Canada and the New England states.  Or they may move southward in the Rockies, getting as far as Colorado.

  • Bohemian waxwings, unlike many songbirds, do not hold breeding territories, and they also don’t have a true song.  They communicate with high-pitched calls as they roam around in large groups looking for fruit
  • Only three species of waxwings exist in the world, the Bohemian waxwing of North America and Eurasia, the Cedar waxwing of North America, and the Japanese waxwing of eastern Asia
  • Bohemian waxwings have an uncanny ability to find fruit nearly everywhere, almost like they have a GPS tracker for berries. Flocks sometimes turn up in desert areas
  • Waxwings have red, waxy tips on some of their wing feathers and yellow tips on the tail.  The colour comes from carotenoid pigments found in the fruit waxwings eat.  As the birds get older, the waxy tips get bigger
  • Bohemian waxwings are important seed dispersers: the seeds of the eaten fruit pass through the digestive system and since the waxwings move through a wide area, the seeds get widely dispersed within good fertilizer i.e the rest of the bird poop