Field Notes: The Cedar Waxwing
Sharing, survival, and an economy of trust
It was a freezing, windy afternoon, the sky clear, blue, and bright with the January sun shining over an icy Springfield Lake. Mallard ducks and Canada geese slid across the frozen shoreline and into the lake. In the distance, in the shallow, icy water, two pelicans, bright white against the brown water, sat with their bills tucked into their feathers. Other migratory ducks floated just far enough away that I couldn’t manage a great photo: Green-winged Teals and Northern Shovelers, their wide beaks sifting through the muck.
On the shore with me, Cedar Waxwings flitted among the large, bare sycamores that lined the lake. Brown-and-yellow masked bandits, they took sips of water alongside American Robins. Through my binoculars, I could see the bright red, droplet-shaped tips on their wings, as if they had been dipped in red candle wax. These red tips can indicate a waxwing’s age and even its status within the group1. The tips of their tail feathers have a similar effect, but in bright yellow, hence the name waxwing.
Cedar Waxwings are one of the few birds in North America that can survive solely on fruit, sometimes for several months2. They love berries and can often be found feasting on fruit-bearing trees and bushes year-round. Waxwings can eat up to 1,000 berries in a single day. Juniper, serviceberries, and dogwood berries are just a few of their favorites. In the northeastern United States, Cedar Waxwings with orange tail tips began appearing in the 1960s. Researchers discovered that these color mutations result from waxwings consuming the berries of invasive Japanese honeysuckle. If a waxwing eats enough of the berries while growing a tail feather, the tip will turn orange instead of yellow3. This is a striking example of how introduced plants can affect native wildlife.
Winter narrows the margin for error. When berries are scarce and ice covers what little remains, a flock cannot afford to be choosy. The bright red clusters of invasive plants stand out against the muted landscape, offering the promise of nourishment when native fruits are gone. For a bird built to follow abundance wherever it appears, the difference between survival and danger is invisible. In winter, trust in the landscape can be fatal when that landscape has been altered.
The Japanese honeysuckle is not the only invasive plant that harms Cedar Waxwings. Nandina, or Nandina domestica, is an ornamental shrub introduced from Asia that produces bright red berries containing cyanide. Nandina has caused what bird experts call mass mortality events, where groups of waxwings gorge themselves on these non-native winter berries when food is scarce and die from cyanide poisoning4.
The loss of a single flock ripples outward. Waxwings are not just consumers of fruit; they are couriers of future forests, scattering seeds far beyond the reach of rooted trees. When invasive plants disrupt that relationship—either by poisoning birds outright or replacing native fruiting species—the damage extends beyond the birds themselves. What disappears quietly in one season echoes years later in what fails to grow.
If you have a Nandina plant in your yard, you can help by cutting off the large clusters of berries before a hungry waxwing finds them. An even better long-term solution is to remove invasive plants altogether and replace them with native berry bushes. American beautyberry, aptly named, produces bright violet berries in clusters along the stem. Common winterberry is another excellent native alternative, offering red berries that persist through winter.
Cedar Waxwings also face other risks tied to their berry-laden diet. On warm spring days, berries from the previous year can begin to ferment. Hungry waxwings may indulge and become intoxicated, sometimes tumbling from treetops in a tipsy haze. If you ever find a lethargic waxwing at the base of a tree, it’s best to gently move it out of the way of predators so it can sleep it off; the behavior usually lasts only a few minutes5.
It is rare to see just one Cedar Waxwing. Highly social birds, they travel in groups. The waxwings I observed flitted from sycamore branches to the lakeshore, five clustered in one tree, seven more a few trees down. They are comfortable sharing space with other species as well, often flocking with American Robins and Eastern Bluebirds.
Waxwings are deeply community oriented. When they descend on fruit trees, you can sometimes see them perched together, passing berries from bill to bill until one bird finally swallows6. This collectivist behavior reminds me of The Serviceberry, a short book by one of my favorite authors, Robin Wall Kimmerer, which explores interconnectedness among humans and the natural world. Kimmerer contrasts gift economies with modern capitalism, using the serviceberry tree as a metaphor. Fittingly, the book’s cover depicts two Cedar Waxwings eating serviceberries.
Watching waxwings pass berries from bill to bill, it is hard not to notice how unremarkable generosity appears to them. There is no hesitation, no tally of who receives more. The berry moves until it is needed, and the flock remains intact because of it. Kimmerer’s gift economy is not idealistic in this context, it is practical. In winter, hoarding would weaken the group. Sharing becomes the most efficient path to survival.
Kimmerer highlights the reciprocal relationship between fruit trees and animals: the serviceberry offers nourishment, and the bird spreads the tree’s seeds by carrying them elsewhere. The serviceberry does not hoard its fruit but gives it freely, creating a system in which sharing produces abundance7. The tree, rooted in place, cannot reproduce without the bird, and the bird cannot survive without the tree. Likewise, the Cedar Waxwing cannot thrive alone, especially in winter when food and shelter are scarce. It depends on its flock, whether fellow waxwings or neighboring robins and bluebirds.
As I watch the Robins and Cedar Waxwings fill their bellies, I see a gift economy in which abundance is stored “in the belly of my brother.” Supporting a thriving bird community is essential to the well-being of the Serviceberry and everyone else up the food chain. That seems especially important to an immobile, long-lived being like a tree, who can’t run away from ruptured relationships. Thriving is possible only if you have nurtured strong bonds with your community. - Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
When the waxwings left me alone on the shore, the trees seemed suddenly empty. Survival, at least here, was never meant to be solitary. The Cedar Waxwing does not endure winter by outcompeting its neighbors, but by trusting them. Passing food, sharing space, and moving together through scarcity. In their presence along the icy shore, they offer a lesson both ecological and human: flourishing is not something we achieve alone, but something we must create together.
Holland, Mary. “Red Feather Tips of Waxwings Indicate Age and Status,” Naturally Curious with Mary Holland.
“Cedar Waxwing Overview", Cornell Lab of Orinthology: All About Birds.
Markson. “Cedar Waxwings Reveal How Pervasively Disruptive Invasive Nandina and Honeysuckle are to Wildlife,” Nurture Native Nature.
Zona, Scott. “Nandina Fruits Can Be Toxic to Birds” North Carolina Botanical Gardens.
Craft, Peg. “Intoxicated Wildlife,” Missouri Department of Conservation.
“Bird Guide: Cedar Waxwing,” Audubon.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” Scribner, 2024.