Cedar Waxwing

Gallery: AvianPosted July 4, 201094 views8 comments

Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)

I’ve been trying since Winter to capture a photo of one of these birds. They were always too far for my 400 mm lens. Yesterday this fellow suddenly showed up quite close and ignored me for a few seconds to feed on berries….. while hiding as much as he could in the leaves…

I find this image interesting because we can see what appears to be the bird’s tongue. It looks to me like he’s forcing the berry back in his throat using his tongue. I wonder if any of you could confirm that this is a reasonable interpretation of what we are seeing here.

The image itself shows a little softness around the bill-tongue area. It might be motion blur. The autofocus point was just below the bird’s eye.

All comments very welcome.

EOS 7D, EF 400mm f/5.6: ISO 400, 1/800 s, f/6.3, image is 3568 pixels x 2757 pixels (=9.8 MP or 55% of the 18 MP of the 7D).

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on July 4, 2010 at 9:16 AM

I find it very interesting to see how that tongue is apparently working on the berry. Perhaps this at least partially explains the shape of the tongue so it can be used to "pull" food items down the throat. I enjoy seeing this Steve.

Addendum - as to the slight softness of the head. I'm wondering if the focus is actually on the leaves above or below the head even though your focus point was below the eye. Depending on which focus grouping I'm using with the 7D it will sometimes grab onto something closer than the bird in a situation like this. Just a thought.

Registered on March 30, 2007, 437 Posts, 10915 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on July 4, 2010 at 10:33 AM

Steve, this is a neat shot--I agree that he seems to be using his tongue to get the berry down. the angle is a little steeper than I'd prefer, but not much you could do about that. I like how you got the bird positioned between all the leaves. I think Ron might be right about the focus.

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on July 4, 2010 at 10:54 AM

Ron and Brian, thank you for your comments. Although I just posted this image three hours ago I felt I should comment now on the point of focus hypothesis proposed by Ron. I think you could be right, Ron. The camera was set up with "AF point expansion" using the center point as the central point (in the hope of a BIF shot...) when this waxwing showed up. Perhaps the AF was misled by leaf movement and jumped to a neighboring AF point. That said, however, I determined the point of focus for the posting caption by using the Canon software ("Digital Photo Professional") to show it. It showed the focus point as being just below the eye.

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 4, 2010 at 11:33 AM

Nice catch, Steve. I suspect you're right. Like a lot of birds, the fore part of the tongue is like a little stiff hook attached to the more flexible part. I think he's using the back of that part to pull the berry in. I agree with Ron that it looks as if the focus might be on the foreground leaf.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Monica Siri on July 4, 2010 at 2:00 PM

Beautiful capture, Steve. I really love the pose with the berry in the mouth and the tongue well clear. I like the setting too. I agree with others about the point of focus.

Registered on September 20, 2009, 132 Posts, 3764 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on July 4, 2010 at 6:49 PM

Steve,

I love being able to see how the tongue is pushing that berry into the bill of the waxwing. A very interesting image and great behavior.

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on July 4, 2010 at 11:30 PM

Thank you for the additional comments everyone. I sure enjoyed reading them. Dennis, the info you mentioned about the tongue was very pertinent and interesting. Rich, you have so many beautiful images of CWWs in your gallery! The specific one you mentioned certainly shows that tongue! The more I learn about bird photography, the more I realize what an accomplishment it is to obtain the very high quality images that you all so regularly post.

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on July 5, 2010 at 9:49 PM

Neat behavioral shot and discussion Steve. Focus issues already noted.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments