Natural Musings

I am a birder. There is almost nothing I enjoy more than heading to a local park (or my backyard) to see what might be flitting about.
But, I didn’t come by this love of birds naturally. Oh, I enjoyed helping my grandmother fill her bird feeders with cracked corn and she taught me what a cardinal was. But, I really just wanted to watch the squirrels. I was a mammal person. I loved spotting deer in fields during drives in the Texas hill country. I was thrilled when I first saw a fox cross the road. It wasn’t until I was a volunteer with a local wildlife rescue group that I began to appreciate birds. More baby birds and injured birds came into our care than mammals. I started to learn to identify birds and learned about their needs and behavior. It was seeing them close up that made all the difference.

This time of year one of my favorite birds to look for is the Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum). I will hear their sweet high pitched notes above and look up and see a flock of up to several dozen birds land in a tree. At a distance they may just be dark silhouettes with a crest on their heads and they don’t look particularly interesting. If the light is good and the binoculars handy, their beauty is revealed. Against a blue sky they are magnificent looking with a black face mask, red wing tips, and a bright yellow tail tip.

Cedar Waxwing in Burr Oak (photo by Betty McCreary)

I wonder what or who else in the world I might learn to appreciate by looking a little closer?