Bev and I went to Ashburnham Center yesterday to see and photograph the flock of Cedar Waxwings reported in Tom Pirro's posting of 12/30/02. We stopped at the post office parking lot on Rt 12 and found about twenty Waxwings feeding on the fruit of a Mountain Ash. We were able to photograph a few. (see above). They are indeed fine looking birds.

In the photo just below I photographed the back of a mature bird - identified by the bright red waxy substance found on the secondaries, together with a cluster of ice encrusted coral red berries of the Mountain Ash. The pigment responsible for the color of the fruit is very similar in color to the pigment found in the wax and may well be one of the major sources of the pigment found on the bird feathers. The pigment is absent or present to only a very limited extent in second year birds (see bottom picture) and this probably reflects the fact that the younger birds have not eaten enough of the fruit to amass the pigment in their feathers. (photos by Bob Ricci).