If you visit here regularly, you know that Cedar Waxwings are one of my favorite photographic subjects. They’ve always struck me as being rather elegant.
I’ll have to admit that I was a little puzzled Sunday when I saw a small flock of them flying around a tall fir tree. When I noticed that almost of them had their beaks wide open,
I half assumed that they were flying down, getting a blackberry and then flying back to the safety of the tree to it eat. I discarded that theory after I’d observed them for awhile and realized that they never left the fir tree, but simply flew a short distance and returned to the tree and sat there with their beak open.
The puzzle was solved when I finally got home and blew up this picture enough to see the insect just out of range of this Waxwing’s beak.
It turned out a they weren’t flying as much as they were simply hopping up to catch insects, only using their wings to land safely after launching themselves mid-air.