I had mentioned the variety of birds that were attracted to the gray
dogwood stands around my house. It seems that most of the warblers and
red-eyed vireos have moved on and I am mostly seeing Swainson's thrushes
cleaning up what remains. A real surprise was the regular visits of
blackpoll warblers that came for quite some time to glean berries.
The dogwoods have been all but picked clean in only the past 3 weeks with
some 95% or more of the berries being stripped. However, the cedar
waxwings are beginning to concentrate. I have had some decent flocks
around for the past week and a half but today I am seeing well over 100
flying between their perches in the upper branches of some large trees and
the red cedars. They were hard to count with birds moving about in flocks
of 20 to 50. My highest count in only one area was 120 birds and certainly
far more than that are visiting us today. They also are descending on a
dead elm that is draped with grape vines which have abundant fruit.
Some of the red cedars did not produce many berries but those that did are
being swarmed by the waxwings, being true to their name. I am sure that
this crop won't last long either but it's nice to see a large percentage of
young of the year among the flock of waxwings.
Bill Volkert
FdL Co.
--
Bill Volkert
Naturalist
www.billvolkert.com
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