A Very Silver Lining!

Posted by Pat Stewart on Feb 5, 2012 in Backyard Birds, My Blog | 1 comment

OK, so all week I have been working through my feelings about how this congregation of robins has transplanted themselves in my yard and have been devouring the berries on my HUGE holly tree.  Reminding myself that the berries are there for wildlife…so, they do belong.  That didn’t really help.  They are just so insatiable!  They fly away, my “regular” birds immediately return, eat some berries, chirp and all seems well again.  Sigh!

But, the robins zoom back in as if on a specific search & destroy mission.  I grab my camera thinking at least I can get something good out of this.  Each time they come, they appear totally voracious…gobble, gobble, gobble!  Geez!!

It’s been rainy the last couple of days, so as I was walking out of church this morning, I noticed numerous worms on the sidewalk.  “WORMS!!  That’s what robins are supposed to eat.”  I actually considered finding something to scoop them up and transport to my backyard, but decided that might hurt my already ailing back, so I didn’t.  Got home and a little later saw the robins ‘ focused fly-in again, the fluttering of their wings to balance their big bodies on the not-so-sturdy limbs with the enticing berries out there on the end.  I’m thinking, “work for it, baby!”  I noticed the the top half of the tree is nearly void of any berries now and they are working their way south.  I wish they REALLY would fly south!

Then, as I’m in the kitchen chopping peppers for my chili, I see an entire HOST of birds so high up in my neighbor’s big, ancient oak tree!  I said out loud, “Good grief, look at all those robins…they just look like a bunch of vultures hanging around up there!  What are they waiting for, why don’t they just come on and finish the holly off!”  I got my camera again because I liked the silhouette effect I was seeing and thought a photo or two would be in order.  

First, as I zoomed, I thought, “robin’s don’t have have crests. Hmm…”  Then, I nearly choked from gasping, “oh, my goodness, robin’s don’t have yellow tipped tails!”  What I saw was lurking up in the tree so high was an “earfull” of Cedar Waxwings.  I have never seen a waxwing around here.  Saw some in the mountains.  These were too far away for me to get a good photo but I got enough to see their Zorro-masked faces, pale yellow under body and the yellow-tipped tail.

Wow!!!  Had I not looked up because of the lurking robins…I would not have seen the prize.

Isn’t that the way it is!