Wandering Bohemian Waxwings

A moment of wonder and joy

I was skiing along a Forest Service road when I heard the noisy chatter and flutter of Bohemian waxwings. Rounding a corner, I saw this flock of fifty or so in and around a snowy juniper tree. Although each bird weighs only about two ounces, a flock creates an incredibly energetic presence as the birds swivel their heads, peck at berries, flap their wings, and call to flock mates. I was lucky to capture this moment; the birds didn’t stay for long—waxwings rarely do. The species was given the name Bohemian because of their constant wandering.  

Waxwings wander in flocks that usually contain fifty to three hundred birds, but can swell to around three thousand. A flock like this one migrates seeking food sources large enough to feed all its members and that requires teamwork. These highly social birds may send out scouting parties to locate food. Once food is found, waxwings may pass a berry from one flock mate to the next until a bird finally eats it.

Waxwings forage across a huge territory. Over the course of a year, the birds range through Alaska, across Canada, and down into the northern US. One waxwing banded by researchers in British Columbia, where the birds are common, was found thirteen months and fifteen hundred miles later in South Dakota, where waxwings are rare. Completing a trip that long on those small wings amazes me. 

During winter, the birds subsist on berries, and their quest for variety takes them across southern Canada and the northern US, where Yellowstone National Park is a regular meal site. Once in the park they feast, as this flock was doing, on the berries of junipers, a tree common in Yellowstone and most of the waxwing range. 

While we call a juniper’s fruit “berries,” they are actually berry-like cones that ripen to about the size of a blueberry in eighteen months. A tree contains both green unripe cones and blue ripe ones. Waxwings select the waxy coating of ripe cones that are high in sugar content. The bird comes equipped with a large liver to convert all that sugar to the abundant energy waxwings exhibit.

But that diet can create problems. After the first frost of the year, juniper and other berries start to ferment. Fermentation is how we humans produce alcoholic drinks, and fermentation in nature creates alcohol too. Eating a lot of fermented berries can lead to alcohol poisoning that makes waxwings fly erratically, crash into windows, fall from perches and freeze in the snow, or die of a failed liver.

One November in the Yukon Territory, for example, with snow on the ground and winter looming, waxwings binged on fermented berries. Drunken waxwings were so common that a government agency set up a shelter where concerned citizens brought the birds that could then sober up safely.

The wandering waxwings I photographed didn’t act intoxicated. But their energetic presence left me—at it always does—a little intoxicated from a sense of wonder and joy.  

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I write and photograph to protect wildlife and preserve wild lands.

My bestselling In the Temple of Wolves; its sequel, Deep into Yellowstone; and its prequel, The Wilds of Aging are available signed. My books are also available on Amazon unsigned or as eBook or audiobook.