Cedar Waxwings

[mcary]

I had the good fortune to have a large number of Bohemian Waxwings feeding in my yard about a month ago and today I was again blessed with a good number of Cedar Waxwings on the block. They were hard at their feeding and did not give me much notice. I even had a few "buzz the tower" and fly right over my shoulder past my ear on a number of occasions. They certainly were fun.

All taken with the 40D, 100-400 @ 400mm, manual mode, 1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 1250

[mmeyer]

Mike, those are really great. I love the composition on the first one and the pose on the last one. They are beautiful birds.

[buzzsaw]

Nice work, Michael. I especially like the last image.

Thats officially the "Mike hat trick"

[Catmendo]

Awesome pic's Mike, beautiful colors so typical of waxwings.

[Dbl]

Very nice work! Throw me in for the last one as well. Beautiful light in these.

[Paul]

I love the composition and detail of the birds. Fantastic shots.

[jonny_redhorse]

Beautiful captures Mike!....one of my favorite birds!...haven't had the good fortune of seeing any yet this year....

[WifeKidsandDog]

Wow, beautiful shots. I love the second one.

[Steve Foss]

Excellent work, Mike. That first composition in particular is very fine, and the light is sweet!

[DonBo]

Beautiful birds. First one is my favorite as well.

[mcary]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the kind words. I appreciate the comments on the nice light from both Dan and Steve, but the light was actually brutal to work with. It was very dark and dreary (which made for nice flat even light), but it was almost impossible to get a reasonable shutter speed and get the birds to sit still long enough to get a good shot. I took over two hundred frames and had a fair number of keepers, but I had to throw a lot of shots that would have been even nicer than the ones presented because the bird made a slight move or the branch was bobbing gently. I would have hoped for a little more light to get higher SS and lower ISO, but I guess this is how photography works. You take what you can get.

[DMN]

Very nice

[JayinMN]

Nice work!

[pumpkinfisher]

The last pic really shows you why they are called waxwings. The red bead-like tips of the secondary feathers on its wings, which look like drops of sealing wax.

[fishinmajishin]

Awesome!

[huntnfishsd]

Wow, what a cool lookin bird! Great work!