Monday, January 21, 2013

Winter Entertainment

The roses are sleeping but the birds are not.



A flock of cedar waxwings has been entertaining me these past few days, flying between my and my neighbor's huge privet trees.


The privet trees are full of berries, and I know a million seedlings will come up all over my yard in spring.


But it is fun to see the birds' enthusiasm for them. Some of the clusters were picked clean in just a few hours.



Cedar waxwings are some of the most beautiful birds that come here. They are not easily scared, and moving slowly I could come quite close to them.


So close in fact, that  a half eaten privet berry finally landed right on top of my camera.


That brought the photo session to a quick end :).


31 comments:

  1. Brilliant photos Masha, so clear. Those birds are beautiful too.

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  2. Hi Masha, I don't recall that I have ever seen Cedar Waxwings when I still lived in the Bay Area, nor here in San Diego. You are right they are truly beautiful and you got some great shots of them. Funny that they dropped a berry on your camera. Maybe that is there way to show their gratitude for the photo shot ;-)?
    Christina

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  3. Oh, they are truly my favorite birds! Your photos are fantastic! Check out these captures, too: allaboutbirds.org. Cedar Waxwings are so photogenic! Supposedly they're in Wisconsin year-round, but I've only noticed them in springtime--chowing out on the Crabapple petals and the remains of last-year's fruit. Beautiful images and beautiful post, Masha!

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  4. Those are some great photos, and the birds are adorable and looking very well fed! My neighbor has a privet and the birds are determined to landscape my yard with forest of privets!

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  5. They are very beautiful birds. I haven't seen them before.

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  6. Masha, you've taken nice photos of waxwings!
    They were here in fall; now I think they flew over the ocean to your place to find trees with berries ;0))
    I love them too, I embroidered the picture of waxwings.
    I don't know what is the привет tree? Is it the local plant?

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    Replies
    1. The privet is Ligustrum (vulgare or ovalifolium). Very common hedging shrub the world over in temperate and sub-tropical climates.

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    2. Nadezhda, thank you. I know it sounds funny in Russian, the translation is biryuchina if it makes any sense to you :).

      Nikos, thank you for taking the time to answer. It is probably not the california one. My best guess is lucidum as it is reliably evergreen and HUGE.

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    3. It might well be a ligustrum lucidum, difficult to tell by the pics. Mind you, the other ligustri can also become quite large if of sufficient age and left unpruned.

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  7. Those Waxwings are just gorgeous Masha.

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  8. Mają krzewy pełne jedzenia, to odwiedzają Wasze ogrody. U nas też te śliczne ptaki fruwają, ale nie miałam okazji zrobić im zdjęć. Twoje są śliczne. Pozdrawiam.
    Shrubs are full of food, you visit your garden. We also fly these beautiful birds, but I had the opportunity to do their photos. Your are beautiful. Yours.

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  9. That Cedar waxwing is a real beauty and the photos are so sharp, have never seen that bird before.

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  10. Your photos are wonderful Masha !!! ♥

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  11. Piękne ujęcia! Pozdrawiam ciepło :).

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  12. Wow, what interesting birds with their little Zorro masks! I had never seen these before. I must say that your photos are excellent. What type of camera/equipment do you use? I am looking to upgrade.

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  13. Gorgeous photos, and so beautiful birds!
    Amazing they let you in so near :-)

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  14. So much color in the gardens in Winter is so far beyond my world. We're dressed in Winter Whites and all the earth is sleeping underneath a thick blanket of snow. Your header is beautiful and gives me hope that Spring will come.

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  15. Cedar waxwings are gorgeous birds, and your photos are just wonderful!

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  16. Thank you!

    GuiriGirl, my 7-year-old son calls them "ninja birds" :) I have the now retired Nikon D3000 with a good but fairly short telephoto. I don't have a lot of good bird photos because I either have to come pretty close to them, or crop severely. Because my camera only has 10 megapixels, severe cropping usually results in a lot of noise :(

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  17. Beautiful photographs and beautiful birds! Jeannine

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  18. Wow, lovely photos! I could watch the birds for hours too.
    Have a nice day!
    Alex

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  19. Hi Masha! I love those birds, they are so funny with those masks... You took some amazing pictures.

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  20. I've never seen these in my garden and so wish they would come! The problem is that I have summer berries instead of winter ones. All my winter berries never make it to winter before the birds devour them. They are such strikingly marked birds.

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  21. Your photos are really great - such crisp sharpness and beautiful composition. These Cedar waxwings look quite similiar to the Yellow-vented Bulbuls which frequent my garden. I wonder whether they belong to the same genus. The url is here - http://stiletto-hottie.blogspot.com/2012/12/quisqualis-indica-and-yellow-vented.html

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  22. These birds are so beautiful. They rarely visit my garden. I usually cut the blooms off my privets so they won't have berries - maybe I should let the berries form!

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  23. Hi Masha, you asked about the software I use to make collages ~ I use Picasa. It doesn't have unlimited flexibility but it's pretty good.

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  24. Hi Masha,

    We have Cedar Waxwings in Michigan--we used to see them Up North just about every day in the summer.
    Your photos are gorgeous!

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  25. Awesome photos! Cedar waxwings are beautiful birds - they love berries so much that they can even get 'drunk' while eating the riper ones, in which case they'll just hang out on the bushes after feasting in a rather lethargic manner.

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  26. For the first time ever saw a group of Cedar Waxwings here converging on and stripping a Toyon of its berries.

    Wonderful photos (as usual).

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I am so glad you have stopped by!