no question about what to post today...

this is a weird bird story, just so you are warned...

(beautiful Internet image of a Cedar Waxwing's eye)

oh man, what an end to my walk this morning...for whatever reason, (well now i know it was for THIS reason), i walked to the back of the house to go inside, vs the front door...

right as i rounded the corner a squirrel ran away. ordinarily this would have been no big deal, but his path consisted of passing a bird, within inches, sitting on the porch. the bird did not fly away which peaked my attention...so i went over to it, sat down with a little distance and took a few pictures...it was sitting upright, and breathing hard. i thought oh no this poor bird is going to die. i looked at the windows thinking, did he run into the window and is he stunned, but then noticed a little berry and black dribble and thought, well, maybe he ate these berries from the tree and got sick.

his sweet little mohawk was just blowing in the wind

so i went inside, got the other camera to take a better picture of him and went back out, sat down and instantly heard a thud. a bird hit the window and i got up and watched it just flounder in the driveway until it eventually fell limp...

i freaked out. oh no... i was out in the driveway out from under the holly trees at this point, and instantly another one, hit, boom and feel lifeless...

so i called my mom, i didn't know what to do. while on the phone with her, two more hit the windows and fell to the ground...

when i looked up, there were TONS of these Cedar Waxwings in the trees in our back yards.

like 100! TONS. they must have been migrating or something and liked the berries for a snack, off our trees. (later while googling what kind of a bird it was i found tons of pictures of them eating red berries) who would have thought those pretty berries could cause so much death, destruction and drama!

(Internet image)

anyways, my mom said i needed to scare, all the birds up in the tree, off. hopefully by doing that i would save more from hitting the windows. i also needed to lower the shades and hope that attracted less to fly into the windows. i lowered the shades and Parker wanted to see out real bad, so i had to put her in a bedroom. but as i was closing them, another one hit...

if you look closely there are 5 in this picture... 3 on the grass and 2 on the porch.

so after closing the blinds, i had to make myself go back out and shoo them off. i walked out the front, and back down the driveway and the one that was lying in the drive way was now standing and as i approached, he flew away! yay! he lived and before looked SO lifeless...

so that was encouraging. i was successful in shooing off the ones in the trees...but the 5 sitting in the grass and on the porch under the windows, i was not able to get to fly away. 4 are sitting up, just STILL and one is laying lifeless, but still breathing...

so i went back inside.

just peaked out 15 min later, and those 5 are STILL there... darn it... who knows what they'll do.

here are some more Internet pictures of the Cedar Waxwing. i hope they move on from my back yard. that was NOT fun, quite traumatic for me, seeing that i hate to see a pretty animal like that DIE. at least they weren't huge black birds or something. i think i'll be exiting through the front door for the remainder of the day until matt gets home to help clean up back there. But more importantly i hope that as they continue to migrate, they don't keep killing themselves like that...its horrible.

i guess this is the 'wax wing'

FOLLOW UP. 30 mins later... 2 of the 5 have left...

these 2 are just sitting in the grass...

and this one has rolled over from its side... i think he's thrown up those berries cause they weren't there originally??? that one is just stuck to his feathers, originally i thought it was IN his mouth about to come out...

and then right at the end he fluttered up to this position. his eye is opened. so maybe he'll eventually fly off...?

side view after he fluttered up...

parker freaking out cause she really wants to see the birds...

she's been moaning/crying this whole time about the situation...

ANOTHER UPDATE: another 30 mins later...

so one of the two, sitting in the grass flew off.

then my mom called to check in on the situation and right when i went out to look, i think i saw the little bird struggling on the back porch, take his last breath and become still...poor thing...but to only have 1 out of the initial 6 die, is not that bad. it could have been a lot worse. and i think that one was throwing up the red berries... they kept appearing around him.

there is still one sitting on the grass, up and alert, looking around. it's interesting to know what he's doing. is he still getting ready to fly off, still stunned, or was he patiently waiting on the sick bird? we'll never know, but hopefully he eventually leaves too!

oh, what a day!

LAST UPDATE, POSSIBLE...

well, i walked out the front door, around the side of the house, to the garage and when i rounded the corner THIS time, 4 birds flew off, from that little side yard by the house...

SO they all left, except the one, who lye dead:

same picture as before, no need to take a new one, as the only difference was that now 2 red berries lay around him and one is IN his beak...i guess he was throwing them up as he drew his last breath...from what i saw, he started like this, floundered a couple times to an upward position and then fell back over and ended like this...

As for those other i thought flew away, one by one. i guess they just went into the bushes, out of my sight from the window. but at least now, i know they've successfully flown away. and this one above, waits until matt gets home to remove of him properly.

what a sad day for him.