NPPF: CANTO ONE (1)

[Jasper Fidget]

> Subject: NPPF: CANTO ONE (1) on behalf of Charles
> 
> Waxwing - "Cedar Waxwings are sleek, elegant birds with long wings, rather
> short tails, and a crest. They have a short, broad bill and short legs.
> Both
> sexes look alike. Adults are buffy brown on the head and back. The brown
> color shades to pale yellow on the belly and to gray brown on the back,
> fading further to slate gray on the rump and upper tail. The tail is
> tipped
> with a yellow band. The undertail coverts are white. The legs and feet are
> black. Adults have a narrow, black mask outlined in white that extends
> over
> the face to end behind each eye in a point. The chin is black. At the end
> of
> each secondary feather, the shaft is extended as a small, red, wax-like
> appendage. The number of these waxy appendages increases with age, until
> adult plumage is attained."
> 
> http://birds.cornell.edu/BOW/CEDWAX/
> 

Some more on waxwings for those interested:

There are three members in the Waxwing family: Bombycilla cedrorum (Cedar
Waxwing or Cedar Bird), Bombycilla garrulous (Bohemian Waxwing), and
Bombycilla japonica (Japanese Waxwing).

Some ancient Europeans believed the red spots in the Bohemian waxwing's
feathers to be sparks of fire, and considered the bird a bringer of fire.
Many European regions considered the bird a harbinger of war, death,
disaster, or pestilence.  (So "Pale Fire" then begins with a messenger bird,
just like Vineland [connection for Doug].)

There's nothing about the bird itself that should have inspired such a bad
rep (just the opposite really).  Perhaps the idea of messenger or harbinger
came about because the waxwing has an unpredictable migration; it's a roving
gypsy bird driven in flocks mainly in a search for food.  In German
folklore, it's said that seven years must pass before their return (as with
locust).

They feed mainly upon berries, notably the juniper (a shrub that has some
significance in Pale Fire) in the winter, when lack of food drives them into
northern US states, and also upon insects, worms, and flowers.  They have an
unusual propensity for sharing food; ornithologist Thomas Nuttall recorded
observing cedar waxwings passing a berry or a worm from beak to beak along a
line of them and then back again.  Sharing food also takes place in a mating
ritual where the male will offer the female a berry or an insect, the female
will take it, hop away, hop back, and return the food, repeating several
times until the female finally eats it (then they get busy).  They are
voracious eaters, and sometimes consume such quantities of overripe fruit
that they become intoxicated; John Audubon noted that he would sometimes
find them too drunk to fly, and could pick them up and move them in front of
his canvas.

They are quiet and gentle birds who nest in pairs and lay white eggs with
black spots.  The black coloring around their eyes looks like a mask (like a
raccoon's, a mask a bandit might wear), and there is a Native American
legend concerning how they acquired this mask (for which I can find no
internet link at the moment).

Other names for the cedar waxwing include cherry-bird, Canada Robin, and
Recollet (to French Canadians due to the resemblance of the color of their
crest to the Recollet religious order).

http://www.northbirding.com/idtraining/guide/ch5sec5b.htm#CEDAR%20BIRD

http://www.northbirding.com/idtraining/guide/ch5sec3.htm#BOHEMIAN%20WAXWING

http://www.wordwiz72.com/waxwing.html

sezJasper