Naturalists used to believe that this manner of eating on the part of wolves was necessary to ensure their survival, since in their native environment, the Arctic tundra and the boreal forests of Canada, they often had to go for days without capturing any large prey. Therefore, when such food was available it had to be eaten quickly, before it froze in winter or spoiled in summer. It seemed a beautifully logical theory until Canadian biologist Farley Mowat took up residence with wolves in the wild and learned they lived mainly on mice in summer and rabbits in winter. So much for logic.
Meanwhile, some three thousand miles to the southwest our waxwings wolfed their food.
Paul Vercammen is a local bird fancier who at one time in his aviary kept four cedar waxwings in addition to more exotic species like Lady Amherst and golden pheasants. The latter were fed a scientifically balanced mixture in the form of pellets while Paul went to considerable lengths to supply the waxwings with pyracantha berries. People who have kept more than one pet simultaneously, canine, feline, avian or any other, should be able to guess what happened: the pheasants took a liking to pyracantha berries and the waxwings thrived on pheasant pellets for five years. They’d probably still be doing it if Paul hadn’t given them to the Museum of Natural History where they’re back on a more conventional diet.
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, ne
ither 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.
Possibly the waxwings of 1961–1962 did not return in the other years. (Why not?) Or, if they returned, they forgot about the waxwing pudding. (I wish I could. I tend to remember it most vividly just as I’m setting out to sea in a small boat.)
Perhaps the real reason is the simplest: waxwings are as unpredictable as people.
9
The Winterlings
Some newcomers to the coast of southern California confess a certain nostalgia for the changes of season they knew back in Pittsburgh or Providence, Peoria or Butte. True, we have summer days in winter, and flowers bloom all year and the reason we find it difficult to grow certain plants is that our climate won’t allow them a time to rest. We have birds all year, too, yet it is the birds who differentiate the reasons most clearly for many of us.
The warbler departing from the New England states at the end of summer leaves a vacuum. In California his place is taken almost immediately. With the coming of autumn we substitute Audubon, myrtle and Townsend warblers for yellow and Wilson and black-throated grey. Summerlings like the black-hooded grosbeaks and western tanagers give way to the winterlings, the ruby-crowned kinglets and purple finches. The hooded and Bullock orioles are replaced by the fox sparrows and the white-crowns and gold-crowns, the turkey vultures by the sharp-shinned hawks. The path of the departing Swainson thrush crosses that of the arriving hermit. On one occasion these two species actually met on our ledge, with no sign of being much interested in each other. Perhaps the traveler was too tired and the embarker too eager to be gone.
The return of birds year after year to the same nesting area has been widely discussed and researched. Not so much has been done on the subject of territorial fidelity to winter quarters, yet almost every Californian with a feeding station is aware how strong this fidelity is among most species. The Audubon warblers and the white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows come first to mind since they are the most numerous. It is easier, however, to keep records on the less numerous species, the Lincoln sparrow, for instance, which is quite rare in our area.
Every October a pair of Lincoln sparrows appears on the lower terrace and for the next five months they divide their time between the terrace and the ledge, doing their best to dispel the widespread rumors that they are shy and retiring and given to skulking in the underbrush. These birds have not been banded but it seems likely, both from their behavior and the scarcity of the species locally, that they are the same birds year after year. Many of our birdwatching friends have come to the house in order to compare the Lincoln with the song sparrow. The two frequent the same area and can often be seen side by side. At these times the differences show up quite clearly—the Lincoln’s ochre-washed chest, finely streaked with black, is distinctive. Younger song sparrows resemble Lincolns more closely than the older birds do.
Another of our regular winter visitors is unusual not because the species is rare here—we list hundreds of Oregon juncos on every Christmas count—but because these birds are gregarious creatures, always in flocks, and our junco, a female, arrives in October alone, spends the winter alone and leaves again in mid-April, still alone. I frequently see groups of juncos on the adjacent property foraging under the avocado trees, so there are obviously many of them in the neighborhood. Yet, as far as we can tell, only this lone female comes to feed on the ledge.
A ranger-naturalist at Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons National Park told us of a similar experience he had and showed us the female junco involved, a member of the pink-sided subspecies. She was nesting where she had in previous years, under a small bush right beside the main walk into Jenny Lake Museum. She allowed herself to be lifted off the nest so that we could see her moss-lined bowl of little speckled eggs. As soon as we entered the museum she returned to her eggs, displaying no signs of rancor or nervousness. Since Grand Tetons Park comprises over 300,000 acres it is difficult to understand why she chose a spot where dozens of pairs of feet passed every day. Perhaps she depended on the presence of human beings to discourage enemies of hers that reached much further back in time than man. The ranger said she showed up every June alone, and built her nest and raised her young alone. He and other employees of the park had watched carefully for signs of her mate but no one ever caught sight of him and his existence has to be presumed on the evidence of three lively children.
Our own Oregon junco was responsible for a misunderstanding which probably caused many a raised eyebrow in local circles. It happened one day in November, a time when severe winds often sweep down the canyon, shaking the crowns of the palm trees as if they were feather dusters, and twisting the eucalyptus into frenzied contortionists. We’d been having trouble with our extension phone and had arranged for a repairman to come and look at it. Returning home from downtown I found that the wind had blown open the door of my office. Birdseed was scattered all over the carpeting and in the middle of it, peacefully foraging, was the little female junco. She seemed quite at home, choosing a seed here and a seed there and then flying up to inspect the desk and lamp and bookcase and my writing chair. When I tried to persuade her to go back out the door she merely hopped into the living room. Here she continued her inspection tour of the house, showing signs of uneasiness only when she discovered that the picture window was made of glass and offered her no means of exit.
Birds, like some people, have a tendency to panic when they realize they’re trapped. The junco was more phlegmatic than most but I was afraid this wouldn’t last and I wanted to coax her out of there in a hurry. I opened all openable windows and removed the screens. Her only response to my attempts to help her was to keep fluttering her wings against the same picture window.
At this point the doorbell rang announcing the arrival of the telephone repairman. Since birds are much more sensitive to movement than to noise, I stayed where I was and shouted through the door: “Wait on the porch for a minute. I have a junco in here I’m trying to get rid of.”
“Can I help?”
“No thanks, I’ll manage.”
And I finally did, by slowly drawing the drapes across the picture window. The junco proved she knew the exits perfectly and had been just playing a game with me. Pausing only long enough to send me a that’s-not-fair look she made a beeline for the nearest unscreened window. When I opened the drapes she was already back in her place on the ledge.
I let the repairman into the house. He stared around the room with a rather disappointed expression. “I see you got rid of him okay.”
“Yes. She went out the window.”
“A female yet. Which window?”
I pointed to it and he crossed the room and looked down at the patio below.
“Say, that’s some drop, must be twelve to fifteen feet and solid concrete underneath. How about that, eh? These junkies will try anything.”
He was so keen and excited that I didn’t have the heart to set him straight. It has probably become part of his family legend—how he was present the day the dope addict jumped out of the bird addict’s window.
Under special circumstances records of territorial fidelity to winter quarters can be kept without banding the birds. This applied in some degree to our pair of Linc
oln sparrows. It applied even more to a bird well known to people living in the East and Midwest, though there had never been a California record of it.
The bird appeared in a willow tree in the yard of Jewell and Russ Kriger about the middle of October, 1961. The willow leaves were still very dense, and at first Jewell was able to catch only a glimpse of the bird, but it was enough to convince her it belonged to a species new in the area. When she finally saw it clearly, she couldn’t believe her eyes and didn’t expect anyone else to believe them either. She spent more than a week studying the bird before she confessed to me on the phone that she had a Baltimore oriole in the willow tree beyond her balcony.
I said what I had to say: “That’s impossible.”
“I know. It’s a male, in perfect plumage, head solid black, belly and rump oranger than oranges.”
I told her I’d be right over, bringing along all my reference books on birds.
When I arrived at the Krigers’ some twenty minutes later, the oriole had left. Jewell was confident though that he would return because his friend was still in the willow tree. She showed me the “friend,” a red-breasted sapsucker, a rather uncommon winter visitor in this region and well worth the trip over just by himself.
The friendship was strictly a one-sided affair, the sapsucker’s opinion of orioles being low, and regrettably, quite justified. As almost everyone who feeds hummingbirds is aware, orioles have a weakness for sweet syrup. So do sapsuckers. But there the similarity ends, for the sapsucker works for his syrup. The oriole, whose beak is not equipped to drill into the bark of trees, does the next best thing—he follows the sapsucker as the jaeger follows the tern and the gull the pelican.
While we were waiting for the Baltimore oriole to rejoin his friend in the willow tree I checked the various books I’d brought with me for references to the species. It was not mentioned at all in Ralph Hoffman’s Birds of the Pacific States, W. L. Dawson’s Birds of California, or Brown and Weston’s Handbook of California Birds. Birds of America, edited by T. Gilbert Pearson, limited the range of the Baltimore oriole to east of the Rockies, and Roger Tory Peterson, in his Field Guide to Western Birds, wrote that any appearance of the species in California or Arizona was accidental. I began to have serious doubts about Jewell’s eyesight.
The Birds and the Beasts Were There Page 13
