Cedar Waxwing    Bombycilla cedrorum

Migratory Status: Neotropical migrant

PIF Population Estimate: 15 000 000

Percent of western hemisphere population breeding in boreal forest: <25%

BAM Effective Detection Radius (m) : 63.1

PIF Maximum Detection Distance (m) : 125

Canadian BBS Population trend: 0.3 n.s. (-0.5 to 1.2)

Life History

The Cedar Waxwing is a highly social bird, foraging and roosting throughout most of the year in small flocks. This species is nomadic and non-territorial for most of the year, and relies almost exclusively on a diet of sugary fruits, which are distributed patchily across the landscape and across seasons. Cedar Waxwings are one of the last passerine species to arrive on their breeding grounds; their delayed arrival date is likely driven by fruit crops that become available later in the year relative to other food sources such as insects.

Cedar Waxwings are beautiful, crested gray-brown birds that are easily recognizable as waxwings by their black face mask and black chin, yellow-tipped tail feathers, and red waxy droplets at the end of their secondary feathers. Features that distinguish them from Bohemian Waxwings (B. garrulous), the only other species from the family Bombycillidae found in North America, are their white undertail feathers and yellowish belly. Male and female Cedar Waxwings look alike but males generally have a larger and blacker chin patch than females.

Cedar Waxwings have a wide breeding and wintering distribution, inhabiting open areas (e.g. old fields and open forests) and riparian areas that have abundant fruit crops. During the breeding season, their range extends from northern British Columbia and possibly Alaska and the Yukon, eastward across Canada to Newfoundland. Southward, its range also extends from coast to coast, breeding as far south as northern California in the west and Virginia in the east. Winter populations range from southern parts of Canada where fruiting trees and shrubs maintain fruit over the winter months southward throughout the United States into Mexico and Central America.

Cedar Waxwings are very important seed dispersers for fruit-bearing trees and shrubs across North America. Cedar Waxwings eat fruits whole, thus ingesting the seeds intact, instead of removing them or consuming them deliberately like most other passerines. During the winter, waxwings rely heavily on the fruits of mountain ash (Sorbus americana) and juniper (Juniperus spp.), but they can become intoxicated and even die if the fruits are over-ripe and have started fermenting. Interestingly, within the last 35 years, Cedar Waxwings have been documented with orange tipped tails, instead of yellow, and this has been attributed to consumption of fruit from an exotic (i.e., not native to North America) honeysuckle species (Lonicera spp.). Change in tail feather colouration occurs if feeding on honeysuckle occurs when new feathers are being grown during molting.

Reference(s)

Witmer, M. C., D. J. Mountjoy, and L. Elliot. 1997. Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum), The Birds of North America Online, . A. Poole, Ed. Ithaca: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; Retrieved from The Birds of North America Online database: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/309