BOHEMIAN WAXWING (Ampelis garrulus) Waxwing family
Called also: BLACK-THROATED WAX WING; LAPLAND WAX WING; SILKTAIL
Length -- 8 to 9.5 inches. A little smaller than the robin.
Male and Female -- General color drab, with faint brownish wash
above, shading into lighter gray below. Crest conspicuous.
being nearly an inch and a half in length; rufous at the base,
shading into light gray above, velvety-black forehead, chin,
and line through the eye. Wings grayish brown, with very dark
quills, which have two white bars; the bar at the edge of the
upper wing coverts being tipped with red sealing-wax-like
points, that give the bird its name. A few wing feathers tipped
with yellow on outer edge. Tail quills dark brown, with yellow
band across the end, and faint red streaks on upper and inner
sides.
Range -- Northern United States and British America. Most common
in Canada and northern Mississippi region.
Migrations -- Very irregular winter visitor.
When Charles Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, who was the first to count this
common waxwing of Europe and Asia among the birds of North America, published
an account of it in his "Synopsis," it was considered a very rare bird indeed.
It may be these waxwings have greatly increased, but however uncommon they may
still be considered, certainly no one who had ever seen a flock containing
more than a thousand of them, resting on the trees of a lawn within sight of
New York City, as the writer has done, could be expected to consider the birds
"very rare.
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