There were only a few items of food which our waxwings refused that winter. One of them was dark bread, rye, pumpernickel and the like, and another was chocolate in any form — both of these were also turned down by the other birds unless absolutely nothing else was available. Chocolate doughnuts, and those merely iced with chocolate, were the last to be eaten, and pieces of rye bread were often left around for days. The aversion didn’t extend to wheat bread, no matter how dark, or to ginger cake, which rules out the possibility that the birds were reacting to the color. Since they’re supposed to have a poorly developed sense of smell and taste, I’m at a loss to explain why our birds exhibited the same dislikes year after year.
Apples cut in halves were particular favorites of the waxwings. Every atom of pulp and seed would be eaten until only a spine of core remained holding together the paper-thin shell of skin. When the wind blew, these shells would move back and forth on the ledge like little riderless rocking horses.
In some parts of the country waxwings are known as cherry-birds because of their fondness for this fruit. But in California waxwings are winter birds and their favorite fruit is the firethorn, or pyracantha berry, which resembles not so much a cherry as a small red apple with a soft yellowish pulp. We have pyracanthas planted for the birds as well as toyons, eugenias, cotoneasters and pepper trees. In 1964–1965, a normal year in climate and vegetation, the pyracantha berries were all gone by February 20, the toyons, eugenias and peppers were untouched, and the cotoneasters were dragging on the ground with the weight of their fruit. During the first week of March, the waxwings started in seriously on the cotoneaster outside Ken’s office. By March 5, an estimated 250 to 300 pounds of berries had been consumed and the limbs of the tree had risen off the ground, back to their usual position.
The waxwing appetite is notorious in the bird world. Audubon mentions their eating so heavily that they were unable to fly, and John Tyler writes of numbers of them, in the vineyard regions of northern California, choking to death trying to swallow too many raisins at once. I’ve never witnessed such extremes, even during that wet winter of 1962, though I saw many a bulging beak and distended throat, and many a batch of waxwing pudding disappear within a minute or two.
One Sunday morning in early March, while we were having a respite from the rain, my brother-in-law, Clarence Schlagel, decided to take some pictures of the waxwings feeding on the ledge for his collection of nature slides. He arrived early with all his equipment: technical assistants wife Dorothy and daughter Jane, one plain and one fancy camera, tripod and telescopic lens. After the usual photographer’s fussbudgeting, he ended up dispensing with everything except the plain camera and simply shooting the birds through the plate-glass window. The results, he phoned later in the week to tell us, were fine as far as the waxwings were concerned, but the old ice trays we used as feeders had ruined the pictures aesthetically. Didn’t we have something prettier and more photogenic?
I explained, somewhat sharply, that when you were feeding hundreds of birds daily, you had little time to worry about aesthetics. But my pride was injured, and that afternoon I searched through some cupboards and came across a candy dish I’d been given in my pre-birding days. It was made of Italian marble in the shape of a pedestal birdbath decorated with doves. Clarence dropped in to inspect my discovery and pronounced it perfect — the whiteness of the marble would emphasize the tawny shades of the waxwings grouped picturesquely around it.
I knew enough about waxwings by this time to doubt that they would group picturesquely around anything if someone wanted them to. However, I agreed to try and arrange a more artistic setting, substituting the marble dish for one of the ice trays and putting in it something pretty and colorful instead of the rather repulsive-looking waxwing pudding.
After checking what was available in the house my brother-in-law decided on maraschino cherries. I opened a jar, put half a dozen cherries in the miniature marble birdbath and set it out on the ledge. It looked irresistible, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and evidently the waxwings weren’t seeing eye to eye with either Clarence or me. For the balance of the day they came as usual, ate their repulsive-looking waxwing pudding and flew off, paying no attention to the beautiful cherries in the elegant dish. I was not only disappointed, I was downright shocked. A newcomer to the bird world, I innocently assumed that things would be more rational there than in other worlds I already knew. Here were cherries and here were cherry-birds — something should be happening.
I told myself that it was probably a matter of the birds getting used to a new object on the ledge and all I had to do was wait. I waited for the rest of the week. Every now and then I’d see three or four waxwings perched on the marble dish or sitting beside it.
The following Sunday, Clarence returned with his photographic paraphernalia and his two assistants to have another try. He wanted to know, whether the waxwings had become accustomed to the marble birdbath by this time and were grouping picturesquely around it. I assured him they were.
“They must make a colorful sight eating the cherries,” he said.
“They might if they were but they’re not,” I said. “They’re eating the birdbath.”
I pulled open the drapes. Most of the waxwings flew off in protest at the interruption, but at least half a dozen remained where they were on the birdbath. Each of them was carefully and vigorously honing its beak, first on one side, then on the other. The little marble doves used as decoration along the rim of the dish had already been honed into oblivion as had part of the base.
Birds, ornithologists point out, are adaptable. But you never know to what.
On April 2, I wrote in my notebook:
Spring has arrived and those gay gluttons, the waxwings, have left us, except for one sad sick little one. His neck is unfeathered and the exposed skin looks raw, and his plumage is almost black. I’ve tried to find out what ails him but no one seems to know. His flight is weak and it’s obvious he couldn’t have kept up with his northbound friends.
Speaking of whom, I find their departure has disturbed the other birds as much as their arrival did. They seem nervous, leery at the idea of landing on the ledge as if they sense something is “wrong” because there are no waxwings in sight. I share their feeling to a certain extent, but mine is tempered by relief.
Waxwings are not noted for their territorial fidelity. Still, I’ll bet a dozen doughnuts and a peck of apples they’ll be back on ledge next year, come October or November...
I would have lost the bet. October arrived, and November, but no waxwings. By Christmas I had seen two flocks in the neighborhood, neither of which paid any attention to the ledge with its bird bath, its doughnuts, apples and waxwing pudding. January brought a small flock or two every day and this continued through March. They ate our cotoneaster berries, our toyons, pyracanthas, eugenias and eucalyptus blossoms. During the next three winters we must have seen many thousands of waxwings from our house, yet not a single one of them came down to the ledge to bathe, to eat, to hone its bill.
My fellow birders have suggested possible reasons:
It may have been a fluke that the waxwings started eating off the ledge that first winter. A group leader, his curiosity aroused by the sight of other birds eating there, might have decided to come down for a taste. Then, once started, the waxwings simply continued throughout the season.