The Bohemian waxwing is a starling-sized passerine bird that breeds in the northern forests of the Palearctic and North America. It has mainly buff-grey plumage, black face markings and a pointed crest. Its wings are patterned with white and bright yellow, and some feather tips have the red waxy appearance that give this species its English name. There are three species, the Bohemian, cedar, and Japanese waxwings.
About Bohemian waxwing in brief
The Bohemian waxwing is a starling-sized passerine bird that breeds in the northern forests of the Palearctic and North America. It has mainly buff-grey plumage, black face markings and a pointed crest. Its wings are patterned with white and bright yellow, and some feather tips have the red waxy appearance that give this species its English name. There are three species, the Bohemian, cedar, and Japanese waxwings. DNA studies and shared features such as a relatively large size, grey underparts and similar undertail patterns suggest that the Japanese and Bohemian Waxwings are most closely related within the genus Bombycilla. The waxwings are a family, Bombycillidae, of short-tailed stocky birds with soft plumage and distinctively patterned wings and tails. The species name garrulus is the Latin for talkative and was applied to this bird, as Garrulus Bohemicus, by Conrad Gessner in 1555. The English name “waxwing” refers to the bright red tips of the secondary feathers on its wings, which look like drops of sealing wax, while “Bohemian” may refer to the bird’s wanderings, or to its origin, Romani, alluding to its waxwing origin. The bird is mainly brown, but there are differences between these forms, mainly brown-tailed, short-gtailed,.gish-tailed. The Bohemian is a short-lived species, but it is of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
It is thought that the species could be possibly considered as monotypic, and the fossil record includes Pleistocene deposits from the UK and the Carpathian Mountains. The cedar waxwing diverged early from the other members of the family, and is believed to be the closest relative of the silky-flycatchers, the palmchat and the grey hypocolius, all of which have sometimes been included in the Bom bycillidae. The three subspecies show only minor differences in appearance, although young birds are less well-marked and have few or no waxy wingtips. The pair build a lined cup-shaped nest in a tree or bush, often close to the trunk. A clutch of 3–7 eggs is incubated by the female alone for 13–14 days to hatching. The chicks are altricial and naked, and are fed by both parents, initially mostly with insects, but thereafter mainly fruit. They fledge about 14–16 days after leaving the egg. Many birds desert their nesting range in winter and migrate farther south. The birds can metabolise alcohol produced in fermenting fruit, but can still become intoxicated, sometimes fatally. Other hazards include predation by birds of prey, infestation by parasites and collisions with cars or windows. In some years, large numbers of Bohemian. waxwings irrupt well beyond their normal winter range in search of the fruit that makes up most of their diet.
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This page is based on the article Bohemian waxwing published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
