Each time I enter a home count in eBird, I include a note that the location is a “Suburban Wooded Back Yard.” The many mature trees in our yard are after all a part of the attraction for the birds that come here. Unfortunately over the past year or two, this description is starting to fray. Our lovely large trees keep falling in unusual numbers and each time this happens, it not only affects the yard’s human owners but also the birds and other creatures that live here. Over this past weekend another very large tree fell. This one in particular is going to have real repercussions for bird life in our back yard.
Cedar Waxwings: Usually I’m not thrilled when huge flocks of birds descend on the yard, displacing our “regulars” from feeders and birdbaths. But when fifty-six (at least!) Cedar Waxwings visited, I was happily excited. Unlike big flocks of Common Grackles, European Starlings and Brown-Headed Cowbirds, this crowd was not aggressive towards the other birds and didn’t displace them. They didn’t want anything from the feeders after all. They didn’t mess with the other birds and the other birds didn’t mess with them. They were just there to drink.
When Common Grackles camped out on my feeders in the spring, I got a Nuttery Globe Feeder to give smaller birds a chance to eat. Cage feeders like this one are sometimes the only way to keep aggressive nuisance birds from dominating feeders.
