RE: [cobirds] Historical perspective on Bohemians?

Matt,

 

Thank you for sharing your (birding) origin story and how the waxwings played an important role in your life's path – a very fun read!!  You are not the first to be ignited by these guys – think Steve may have a few years on you – and certainly won't be the last.  Let's hope this year's Bohemian Waxwing incursion will spark a few young lights.

 

Thank you as well Jarod for kicking off all these recollections, and various levels of historic data dumps, from the COBirds community - as always fascinating and informative.  For me it has been a bit of affirmation that my mind still has some functionality.  I grew up in the Denver/Boulder area not far behind Mr. Larson and recall Bohemians being pretty regular with the occasional large scale irruptions as many folks have recounted (do remember that crazy  winter of 1987-88 in Boulder); actually would get more excited finding a few Cedars.  As I've mentioned previously, we moved to North Idaho in 2000, then started coming back regularly a little over seven years ago to spend the winter and springs in Colorado.  So when asked by a local Denver birder a couple of years ago to let him know if I found any Bohemians in town as he needed one for his county list, my reply was "Really?!?".  I began to wonder if I was "misremembering" their abundance, or had there been a change in the bird's population?  Now I understand the current interest as these beauts are no longer regular at all.  Northern Colorado used to be part of the normal wintering range for Bohemians, but now the southern portion of this range seems to have retreated northward.  This shift in occurrence, like the numerous species now wintering in southern Colorado, is sadly another reminder that our climate has shifted as well.  Our birds and their population dynamics are almost literally "canaries in the coal mine", so the collective information we gather and report in pursuit of our hobby (ie; CBCs, BBSs, Breeding Bird Atlases, DFO field trips, eBird, …) is key in understanding our World today as an accumulation of history – Steve, you and I need to get off our asses and plow those missing decades of data into eBird!!

 

So again, thank you Matt and Jarod for your contributions to this forum.  Let's all enjoy this current irruption of one of Nature's finest while we can, who knows when we get the next one.

 

Good Birding,

Doug

Denver

 

PS – On a somewhat related note, while not quite the intensity of the Cassin's Finch irruption during the spring of 2020, there do seem to be a number in the lowlands this year and we were fortunate to have a female type CASSIN'S FINCH come into our feeders in southwest Denver (Athmar Park, Denver Co., CO) today (Tues., 31 Jan.'23).  Keep your eyes and ears open while out hunting for your next flock of waxwings!

 

 

From: cobirds@googlegroups.com <cobirds@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Matt Webb
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2023 10:17 AM
To: woodcreeper29@comcast.net
Cc: Jared Del Rosso <jared.delrosso@gmail.com>; Colorado Birds <cobirds@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [cobirds] Historical perspective on Bohemians?

 

Hey all,

 

I always enjoy hearing about people's experiences with specific birds or species!  Bohemian (and Cedar!) Waxwings have always been an important bird to me, as they are the main reason that I got back into birding (and now work with birds full time!).

As a kid I had been into birds and birding, even begging my mom to take me on a Christmas Bird Count in the Salida area when I was 7 or so.  (As my mom tells it, the adults were annoyed with such a young kid being there until I started pointing out birds they didn't see.)  When I would look at my birds books, I would spend hours looking at the waxwings just thinking they were so lovely.  I always thought it would be impossible to see them because they seemed so magical and the tiny maps in the book didn't appear to include southern Colorado.  My interests shifted as I entered my teens and picked up various instruments and garage bands.  Fast forward to 2008 (when I was in my early 30's), and I was reading an article in the Fort Collins Coloradoan (local newspaper) about the dam project that was being debated north of town.  In that article they talked about the wildlife that uses the Cache la Poudre River, and mentioned that Cedar Waxwings nest along the river corridor through town.  What!? I could see these birds here?  The next day I picked up a $20 pair of binoculars from Jax and began searching for them.  I was a student at Front Range Community College, and my wife and I would go on walks through the nearby neighborhoods during our breaks.  One day in late January we found both species going crazy over a tree full of withering crabapples in the front yard of a house just south of campus.  (Here's my eBird list of that day, my first viewing of both species: https://ebird.org/checklist/S3460064).  As we watched the birds, one Bohemian waxwing ate a bunch of the crabapples, jumped into the air and darted directly into the front window of the house, slamming into it hard.  It flew right back to the same branch, shook off the impact, then fell dead to the ground.  I was able to pick the bird up and look at it in my hand, which was pretty intense but also very incredible.  I set the dead bird back down and we went back to school, writing about the experience on my Myspace account that evening.  haha, remember Myspace?

 

Several years later, I found myself working with bird-window collisions for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and would often bring waxwing specimens from the museum collection out when giving talks about the dangers of windows.  After returning to Fort Collins, I have wondered about seeing Bohemian Waxwings again, and have been very excited to be able to see a few this winter.  It's great to have them back in the state, and fun to see everyone else enjoying them as well!  Thanks for letting me tell you my story about these amazing birds.

 

Now back to work! 

Matt

 

Matthew M Webb

Avian Ecologist and Motus Wildlife Tracking System Coordinator

Bird Conservancy of the Rockies

Motus project #281

970.482.1707 x36 (office)

970.405.7155 (mobile - use this number!)

www.birdconservancy.org

 

Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter

 

 

On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 4:17 PM <woodcreeper29@comcast.net> wrote:

Hi Jared and COBirders

I grew up in Boulder in the late 1950s and 1960s. Bohemian Waxwings were one of the big reasons I became interested in birds. My parent's house was on 43rd St. (my mom still lives there) and it had a large picture window with berry producing juniper bushes outside. I remember very large flocks of Bohemians on several occasions covering these bushes about four feet from my face as we stood at the window watching! At times there were probably 200-300 birds! This was probably 1963 or 64 before I started note taking. My notes show irruptions (using the more than four criteria) in 1968, 73, 74, 79 and 84. Most of my old records from the mid 60s to the late 80s are not in ebird. The current numbers of birds is definitely spectacular!

Steve Larson

Northglenn, CO

On 01/29/2023 5:24 PM Jared Del Rosso <jared.delrosso@gmail.com> wrote:

 

 

I'd love to hear from long-time birders about their experiences with Bohemian Waxwings prior to this year! While eBird tells part of the story, I'd love to hear more about these past encounters -- including but not limited to where, how many, when, what the birds were up to, and anything else that stood out. I think it would help those of us who are newer to the state and/or birding (like me) appreciate the encounters we're having this winter. 

 

Here's my contribution, which isn't my contribution.

W. H. Bergtold, who I wrote about for the October 2022 issue of DFO's The Lark Bunting, reported Bohemian Waxwings "all over [Denver] in great numbers, from February 22 to April 8, 1917, when the last two were seen in Cheesman Park." This brief account appears in The Wilson Bulletin in Bergtold's 1917 list of Denver birds. 

 

Oddly, Bergtold has a single account of a Cedar Waxwing listed in the same essay: "Cedar Waxwing. Seen in Berkeley, February, 1906." Might Denver's birders have once chased that Cedar as we've been out looking for Bohemians?

 

Finally, I'll note Joe Roller's eBird report of Bohemian Waxwings in his S. Yates home in 1991. Joe had told me that he'd had large flocks of Bohemian Waxwings in his yard, but I couldn't find it on the eBird map, thinking his home was closer to Wash Park and the encounter more recent. (Perhaps this is a previous home?) In any case, his brief note on the historical checklist tells us that 1991 was an invasion year for Bohemians: "Had large flocks throughout winter, lingering into spring. Larger than nearby Cedar Waxwings, rusty under tail coverts; 'mean' looking facies." I suspect "facies" is a typo, but with Joe I can't be sure. It's also apparently a medical term! I'll also admit to not realizing that Bohemians appear mean, though I indeed think that of Mountain Chickadees.

I checked DFO's newsletter archives, and Bohemians were reported on DFO trips from November 1990 (Barr Lake, three in total) through mid-April of 1991 (150+ in Lakewood). 

 

Briefly -- occasional sightings of a female/immature type Cassin's Finch and a White-throated Sparrow in my Centennial yard. Yesterday encountered a flock of robins and a small number of Bohemian Waxwings as they descended on an errant Buckthorn in a neighborhood yard near University and Orchard. I stopped briefly and made everyone in my car ooh and aah. 

 

- Jared Del Rosso

Centennial, CO

lonesomewhippoorwill.com

 

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