Dear Tweeters,
Today, the second of September, a juvenile Cedar Waxwing spent quite some time perched on my head, hands, shoulders, telescope, binoculars, and camera. This was at the Fir Island Game Range.
Shortly after nine in the morning, as I was standing in the boat-launch parking area, this bird flew between my legs, only an inch off the ground, and landed on the gravel about two feet behind me. As soon as I turned around, the bird flew up and landed on top of my head. Then it flew down to my shoulder. After flying off and perching for a minute or two on top of a sign, the bird returned to me. I walked around for several minutes, as the bird flew from perch to perch, always on my person. When I tried to take photos with my cell phone, the bird flew onto the phone, so I got out my camera. Then the bird flew onto the camera. Nonetheless, I managed to take some photos, which I will put onto an eBird checklist. I might even post the video of my conversation with the bird.
Several hours later, when I returned to the same spot, the bird landed on me again. I managed to take a few photos of the bird as it perched on my spotting scope, right next to a shiny new ABA "Bird of the Year" sticker, which depicts a Cedar Waxwing.
I walked over to show the bird to some field biologists who had been conducting a bird census, and were now having lunch in their vehicles. When I got over to them, the bird flew off my head and into the cab of one of their pickups, where it perched on the steering wheel.
I brought the bird back to the blackberry patch where it had been foraging, and it soon went back to eating blackberries, rather than begging for food by opening its beak wide and cheeping at me, a member of a different species (and vertebrate class).
It was with a twinge of guilt that I merely let this bird go, rather than give him a smart smack in the rump. I hope that he learns to fear humans, rather than trust them--else he end up perching on the shoulder of a malicious person.
Later on, I met a birder at Hayton Reserve, who told me that he'd observed some similar behaviour by a juvenile Cedar Waxwing at the same spot, the day before.
Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch

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