Month: April 2023

Our campsite at Meaher State Park in Alabama proved perfectly situated for watching birds. Our first afternoon I looked up to see a flock of birds in a tree. They all took off together, landed in another tree, then did the same and came back to the first tree. I checked through the binoculars to confirm Cedar Waxwings.

The Cedar Waxwings sat in a pine tree, but individually flew over to another tree/bush behind another tree and stayed in the foliage there, returning to the pine occasionally. After they left I walked down to the water and saw berries on the tree/bush and when they returned saw them feeding. The flock stayed about three days, filling up on food to fuel leaving their winter home for the summer.

They stayed very much to those two trees during the day, and as evening came I saw them fly to the top of a long-leaf pine further away. I spoke to other birders in the park I saw out birding, and they had not seen the Cedar Waxwings at all so I told them to check the tree behind our site late morning or in the afternoon. It seems their daylight activity remained restricted to the two or three trees behind our campsite near the water.

Toward evening two Boat-tailed grackles landed in a tree near the edge of Mobile Bay. The two black silhouettes first called to each other. Then, they both looked up to the darkening sky, expanded their bodies and tails, and started singing.

This continued for a minute or two, and after that they took turns singing. As one finished the other puffed up his chest, expanded his tail, and started.

Toward the end they moved and faced one another singing, and shortly afterward the concert stopped and they flew away. We watched the entire performance, which went on for over thirty minutes, speculating on the reason. The coloration we saw through our binoculars indicated two males, and at no time did we see a female approach. Were they bachelors, showing off their singing talent for females they knew to be in range and advertising their availability? Did both want that particular territory and used the songs in a competition for it? Regardless, it was a fascinating sight.