The Bohemian Waxwing in Maine.
By Ora W. Knight, Bangor.
About the first of March the writer noticed an item in the Bangor Commercial to the effect that Mr. Clark had seen large flocks of the Northern Waxwing at Lubec during the past winter, but paid no further attention to the event, knowing that Mr. Clark would doubtless record the matter in proper shape in a more scientific medium in due season.
On March 9th, Dr. W. H. Simmons, of Bangor, called me up on the telephone and said he wished to tell me about the flock of Bohemian Waxwings which he had seen daily near his home since the middle of February. He stated that there was a good sized flock of the birds, and that they had been feeding daily on the fruit of a mountain ash tree which grew beside a window of his home, where he could look down on them. The birds had been coming for some time before he paid any especial attention to them, thinking that they were doubtless Pine Grosbeaks, until he happened to notice that they all had crests, which he knew was not a fact with the Grosbeaks. He then examined the birds critically and identified them as Bohemian Waxwings by their having white wing bars, yellow tips to their tail feathers, and by their prominent crests. Dr. Simmons also states that in February, 1908, a flock of birds of the same size were daily in the habit of visiting the same locality, but at that time he took no particular notice of them, though he is inclined to believe that they were of the present species.
March 11th, the writer and Mr. Winch visited the locality for the purpose of personally seeing the birds. They were not about Dr. Simmons' premises, but he was able to give us an idea of the general route they pursued, so that finally we found the flock feeding on rotten crab apples in an orchard several blocks away. Yes, there is no question as to their identity, as they were positively Bohemian Waxwings. They were busily engaged in eating the rotten apples, sometimes eating the pulp itself, at other times pecking the apple to pieces and eating the seeds, which they swallowed without shelling out the meat as do the Pine Grosbeaks.
Now and then the birds would fly from the tree in which they were feeding to a neighboring tree, uttering low lisping notes and whistlings which sounded very appreciably different in character from the notes of the Cedar birds.
They were very tame, so that I was able to get up within fifteen feet of them and secured six exposures of them with my pocket kodak. As if to show their kindly and obliging nature, they waited patiently until I was through taking photographs, and then at a signal the whole flock flew away in a compact bunch. Later in the day Mr. Winch secured one at the same locality, to which they returned.
From Dr. Simmons I was able to learn somewhat of their feeding habits. They did not seem to eat the pulp of the mountain ash berries but delved into the berry to obtain the seed while the pulp was dropped on the snow beneath. They seem to be more or less regular in their feeding habits, frequenting certain localities in a given route or circuit through the immediate neighborhood for a distance of a dozen blocks or so.
One of the teachers at the neighboring grammar school, who has aspirations to be somewhat of an ornithologist, had an item printed in the Bangor Commercial to the effect that the Cedar Waxwings had been wintering in the immediate neighborhood. Dr. Simmons saw this item in print and immediately called me up on the telephone to call my attention to the error, thus happily resulting in giving me much valuable information and the pleasure of seeing the birds as well.
It is well on to twenty years ago, when the writer was a high school boy, just beginning his scientific career, that the Bohemian Waxwings last visited this locality. In those early days Bohemian Waxwings and other northern birds used to visit us rather more frequently than they do now, as we used to see them every three or four years, but now that twenty years has elapsed from their last call to the present visit it is indeed a pleasure to be able to see them once more.
Practically all our winter birds seem to come in fewer numbers and less frequently and regularly than formerly, though even in those early days such eccentric creatures as the Bohemian Waxwings, Crossbills, and to a lesser extent the Pine Grosbeaks, could never be depended on.
Formerly we always found the Crossbills in winter, not at any other season, while now about Bangor both species of Crossbill occur more commonly and regularly as summer birds in May, June, July and August.