Mike in the Wild

After three long years, cedar waxwings returned to my Phoenix neighborhood, this time giving me plenty of time to photograph them.  Exactly like the last time, I spotted the flock of birds in a tree on my street, a couple of houses away from my own.  Except on this joyful occasion, they lingered nearby long enough for me to capture some memorable shots. In mid-February 2020, I noticed the waxwings in a palo verde tree as I approached it in my car.  Since the tree hadn't yet burst into its spring blooms, the eight or nine individual birds clearly stood out against the green, spindly branches.  And even better, my sunroof was open, affording me an unobstructed view of these gorgeous birds right above my head.  Rather than pause and enjoy the first-time sighting for longer than a moment, forgoing even snapping some shots in zoom mode with my cell phone, I sped the hundred feet down the street to retrieve my camera from inside my house.  Seconds later with the ...

I had just finished lamenting   in my last post   over the dearth of "wow" moments in this year's bird sightings when I drove into just such an event three houses up the street from my home.  In fact I actually drove under an entire flock of them. I've seen cedar waxwings only once before, near my sister-in-law's home in Ventura County near Los Angeles.  There might have been two dozen of them gathered high in some trees in that tightly manicured neighborhood.  Even when I was more than twenty feet below them, my camouflaged presence so close to their perch's leafy canopy scared them away.  Nevertheless they kept returning to the same couple of trees which allowed me to get a few photographs over the course of a weekend. I wasn't quite that lucky with last week's sighting though.  As I drove along my street, I noticed the group of birds in a palo verde tree.  Since the tree hadn't burst into its spring blooms yet, the eight or nine individual ...