The cedar waxwings were also interested in the gray stump--but afraid of it?
When Mr. Flicker came back, he flew past his house without once swerving, and disappeared in a pine tree on the edge of the orchard, and a conclave of cedar waxwings in the next tree discussed his tactics enthusiastically.
Thus, an outbreak of any insect pest calls the waxwings in large flocks which destroy great numbers to the almost entire exclusion of fruit as a diet for the time.
The cedar waxwingsare gregarious, except during the breeding-season, wandering about the country in flocks of a dozen individuals, more or less, stopping for any considerable time only where food is plentiful.
In common with the goldfinch, the waxwingsare late breeders, making their nests in June, July, and August.
It cannot be denied that the waxwings do sometimes destroy not a little early fruit, calling down upon them righteous indignation; but at other times they more than make amends for the mischief done.
The Waxwings are named from the curious wax-like appendages attached to the tips of the secondaries, and rarely to the tail feathers.
It appears that waxwingsare descendants of migratory birds that have adjusted themselves to a life in the north; and they are judged not to have evolved from year-round residents of the north.
The winter months are those in which waxwings frequent berry bushes, and it may well be that in these months, the wax tips that appear like berries, are especially valuable to the birds, and operate selectively.
Since that name is applied to the shrikes only, the next available generic name that may be applied to the generically different waxwings must be used.
Both species of American waxwings build bulky nests, with the base or platform composed of a large amount of twigs and sticks, from which there often trails a mass of sticks and moss or string.
In this connection it is notable that young Cedar Waxwings are streaked, and young Bohemian Waxwings are streaked to a lesser degree.
Waxwings were at one time regularly migratory, but are now nomadic, since they are adapted to live in northern latitudes for the entire year.
Waxwings probably are the descendants of a migratory population that diverged from the primitive population at an early time in the history of the family.
In other words, Dulus and Phainoptila have remained unspecialized, in contrast to the waxwings in which adaptive changes fitting them for a perching habit have taken place.
The rectrices of all three species of waxwings seldom possess the wax tips, unless the secondaries have the maximum number of tips.
In Waxwings the length of the legs, expressed as percentages of the body-lengths, are identical with those birds that are similar in habits, that is to say, birds which do not use the hind limb except in perching.
Nesting by waxwingsis late in the season; June is the month in which the nest is usually started.
Sometime after all the other birds, except the tardy little goldfinch, have nested, the waxwings give up the flocking habit and live in pairs.
Among the birds the waxwingsmost readily acquired this delightful Southern habit of taking life easy.
In fact the waxwings are inclined to be lazy, except when they are nesting; they are the most deliberate creatures one can find, but very foppish and neat in their dress.
Waxwings are found in small flocks during the greater part of the year and roam about the country as though they were quite as much at home in one place as in another, provided food be plenty.
They were in a cedar tree and were picking off and eating the cedar berries as busily as the five Waxwings had picked Farmer Brown's cherries in the early summer.
There were five of the Waxwings and they were now seated side by side on a branch of the cherry tree.
Peter didn't know it but because of their fondness for cedar berries the Waxwings were often called Cedarbirds or Cedar Waxwings.
The movements of the cedar waxwings are as uncertain in summer as they are in winter; they may be common in one locality for a year or two, and then, apparently without reason, desert it.
Of the three waxwings known to scientists, two are found in America, and the third in Japan.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "waxwings" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
