Waxwings

Last year I took a quick trip home between Christmas and the New Year.  While I was home the annual flock of Bohemian Waxwings finally got around to dining on the crab apples on a tree next to Mom and Dad's house. I was able to spend some time hanging out next to the tree and watch these birds descend in scattered groups into the branches of the tree and work their way up and down the branches until all of the apples were stripped from their stems.
Bohemian Waxwings are common winter visitors to much of Montana, particularly where there is any sort of fruit remaining on the trees.  Most often their fruit of choice is something like crab apples or Mountain Ash berries, but I have also watched them down the little olives from Russian Olive trees. They often form very large skittish flocks of 800 or more individuals that swirl around from tree to tree.

They often perform some interesting gyrations to get just the right fruit.

Last week a few showed up at the local city park to work over the last of the apples there.