Cedar Waxwing Feeding: a bit of sleight of hand (beak)

[James Jans]

I was in Tofino, Vancouver Island a couple of weeks ago. Two Cedar Waxwings caught my attention, as one was squawking and making begging gestures towards the other. My first thought was that it was a juvenile begging, but I have since read that adult females will courtship beg prior to starting a second clutch. I was in an awkward position, leaning over the handrail of a raised deck and peaking around the corner of an ivy-covered trellis. I got off 9 shots in 9 seconds, but most are either blurry/shaky or not well framed. But the 9 shots are clear enough to have me extremely puzzled!

It involves some sort of sleight of hand (beak) involving a berry that looks like it might be a black currant, and a very red raspberry. Here's a runnng time line of what I have:

T - 0: Bird on the left (L) is begging, bird on the right (R) has a currant in its bill
T + 1 sec: L is not begging, the currant has disappeared from R's bill
T + 2 sec: L is begging, but a raspberry (!) can be see in its throat; R has nothing in it's bill
T+ 3 sec: no doubt that it is a raspberry in L's throat; R still has nothing
T + 4 sec: L is begging, but can't see in the mouth; R has a currant in its bill (!)
T + 5 sec: L is begging; R is apparently about to place the currant in L's mouth
T + 6 sec: With the currant, R is leaning further into L's mouth
T + 7 sec: L continues to beg, but R is holding a RASPBERRY (!) in it's bill!!!
T + 8 sec: both bills closed, no evidence of any berries
T + 9 sec: R has fluttered a foot or so away down the tree

My understanding is that waxwings swallow berries whole. But do they have a crop that they can store berries? Are they exchanging berries here? Or is one successfully begging food from the other? Any insight into this one is greatly appreciated! Thanks,

Jim

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Unless they can hold several berries in their crop, it sounds like an exchange, which is part of their courtship behavior. I read that waxwings sitting on power lines pass on berries to whoever feels like eating it. I think that is a very interesting behavior.

[John Chardine]

James- You have provided a very detailed account of the behaviour you witnessed. Well done. It shows how useful photography is for recording events like this.

I did a little bit of research and can tell you that this food exchange between male and female waxwings has been observed before. Males feed females in a range of species including waxwings- this is called Courtship Feeding and has been shown to be an important source of food for the female. This occurs before any clutch including the first of the season. As you probably know waxwings breed much later than many species so I think it was a bit early even for Vancouver Island to have seen a fledgling. So I think you were seeing food exchange between a male and female. Waxwings do have crops like most/all birds (can't think of one that doesn't) and it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to be able to regurgitate food from their crop for the purposes of courtship feeding, chick feeding and food exchange.