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Anyone seen waxwings in the Peidmont yet?
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Anyone seen waxwings in the Peidmont yet?
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 17:33:02 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Hi C-birders,
I was working outside today, alternating between reading my new favorite
book and watching lots of American Robins visit some kind of fruiting
tree overhead. It then occurred to me that Cedar Waxwings should be doing
similar things by around now, but scanning the recent posts to
Carolinabirds, I only see them mentioned by folks in the foothills like
Tom Lorenzin and Dwayne and Lori Martin; nothing further east/downhill.
I've been out about once a week lately, more if you count loitering in my
backyard, and spent yesterday trail-cutting in the new Johnston Mill
Nature Preserve, but have not seen or heard a one. It seems strange to be
reading reports from the Piedmont of Red-breasted Nuthatch, Purple Finch,
Pine Siskin, and on the coast Snow Bunting; and to read the Massachusetts
RBA reporting Hoary Redpoll, Boreal Chickadee, and *Bohemian* Waxwing
(with only ten days left until I fly home for Thanksgiving, oh boy oh
boy!); but to see no mention of one of the most reliable and consistent
winter birds for this area. Or perhaps my having lived here for only two
and a half years is coloring my impression of just how consistent they
are. The CHBC Checklist for the Triangle lists them as becoming "common"
by the last week in October. Is it just me, or are the CEWAs behind
schedule?
The other noteworthy observation today was that, in the midst of the
chickadees visiting my sunflower feeder today, I distinctly heard one
give a two-note "fee-bee" song. I know, they don't get below 4000 feet in
NC, and the Carolina Chickadee can imitate the Black-cap's song, and the
two can hybridize, and Black-capped Chickadee is not even on the Triangle
checklist. Yet somehow, this knowledge could not prevent me from very
closely examining the bib and secondaries and relative body size of every
chickadee that visited the feeder for the rest of the morning...
Ever the optimist,
Josh
Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology
jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/