The Cedar Waxwing is a North American songbird recognizable by its distinctive, slicked-back crest. These medium-sized birds are social and often travel in groups through wooded areas. Their appearance, accented by a black mask, interests many who hope to draw this species to their backyards. Understanding their specialized lifestyle is key to appreciating their presence.
Understanding Cedar Waxwing Feeding Habits
Cedar Waxwings generally ignore traditional feeders offering sunflower seeds, millet, and suet. This is due to their specialized diet, as they subsist almost entirely on fruit and berries (frugivorous). Outside of the breeding season, their diet can consist of fruit alone for several months.
Standard birdseed and suet offer the wrong nutrition, as the waxwing’s digestive system is optimized for the simple sugars found in fleshy fruits. During the summer breeding season, they supplement their sugary diet with protein-rich insects, such as mayflies and beetles, often caught mid-air. These insects are important for feeding their young, but the birds quickly revert to a fruit-heavy diet afterward.
Attracting Waxwings Through Specialized Food and Water Sources
Cedar Waxwings can be enticed to feeding stations that mimic their natural food sources. To attract them, provide soft, bite-sized fruit on open platform feeders or shallow trays, as they prefer to pluck food from a perch. Specific offerings include:
- Raisins
- Dried cranberries
- Chopped grapes
- Small chunks of apple
- Orange halves
A natural approach involves planting native trees and shrubs that produce small, persistent berries, such as serviceberry, juniper, winterberry, and hawthorn. The birds swallow these small fruits whole to efficiently consume the high-sugar pulp. When offering fresh fruit, ensure it is not fermented, as overripe berries can produce alcohol that may intoxicate the birds.
Providing a reliable water source is important for attracting these social birds. Cedar Waxwings are heavy drinkers and frequently bathe in groups. A bird bath with a bubbler or gentle fountain is effective, as the sound of running water often draws in entire flocks for both drinking and preening.
Visual Keys for Identifying Cedar Waxwings
Identifying a Cedar Waxwing involves looking for several key features. The most prominent is the forward-swept, pointed crest of feathers atop their head, giving them a streamlined profile. This head is framed by a sharp, black mask that extends from the bill, across the eye, and tapers toward the back of the head.
The body plumage is a blend of brown, gray, and lemon-yellow, with the belly often appearing paler. A definitive field mark is the bright yellow band that borders the tip of their tail feathers, visible even in flight. The feature that gives the bird its name is the series of small, red, waxy droplets found on the tips of the secondary wing feathers.
Seasonal Movements and Expected Presence
Cedar Waxwings are not strictly migratory birds but are considered nomadic, meaning their movements are irregular and driven almost entirely by the availability of fruit. They have a wide range across North America, but where a flock appears one year is not a guarantee of their presence the next year. Their wintering grounds can stretch from the southern United States down to Panama, depending on where a reliable food supply is located.
These birds are often seen in large, roving flocks that descend upon a single, fruit-laden tree or shrub until the crop is completely depleted. Because they delay nesting until mid-summer when soft fruits like cherries and mulberries are abundant, their appearance often comes later than that of other nesting songbirds. A sudden influx of a large flock is the most common way a backyard observer will encounter them.