Belted by a Waxwing

Cedar's a Kingfisher...

Nov 09, 2025

Substack has warned me that this post is “too long for email,” so to see all of it, you should click on the title and read it from the web instead of your inbox.

These have been two of the most elusive birds for me to photograph. I’ve given up on every photographing a Yellow-Rumped Warbler, I’m just not fast enough with the camera, but Cedar Waxwings are gregarious and eat berries, so you’d think they’d be easy. This is the first time I’ve run into them at Timber Creek!

The first time I spotted some was at Lake Parvin, better known for Bald Eagles and Buffleheads, and they were so high up in a tree and shy of my approach that I barely identified them. They’ve been similarly shy since, until I visited Timber Creek later in the morning, and carefully stepped through a wood in the middle of the parade grounds that is mostly unexplored by the ubiquitous dog walkers. American Robins and House Finches were plentiful, along with Blue Jays and White-Throated Sparrows. I couldn’t pass up this photo of a House Finch:

The Waxwings must have been too hungry to be bothered, or I’m getting better at walking softly in the underbrush, rolling my steps heel to sole, and hiding behind trees to get closer. Eventually they moved on, and I headed to the water, hoping to catch some migrators.

Instead, the recent rain had raised the water level enough that the resident Belted Kingfisher was out hunting. I’ve written about hearing this bird before, and I’ve come to recognize their quick warning chitter, which sounds a little like one of the sound effects used for the “Predator” in that franchise of science fiction action films.

The water was high but I didn’t even see a Canada Goose or Mallards! Various brown Sparrows flitted through the marsh reeds, and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers and Tufted Titmice scolded me from on high, but there was little to see. I was about to give up, when I heard that familiar chitter.

I had time, so I opted to be patient. I scanned the trees with my binoculars, and found a sleeping Great Blue Heron!

This one was on the far side of the creek, and as you can tell from my distant photographs, at about the limit of my lens. (This is how I am going to talk myself into buying a spotting scope.)

There was also a Downy Woodpecker hanging underneath a dead tree, pecking away, so I had something to look at while I waited for the Kingfisher, who kept chittering warning, that he’d spotted me. I carefully found a spot behind a tree that leans out over the water and makes a good place to brace one leg and stay still, and I began scanning perches for my little shy friend.

It didn’t take long, as he was not far from the sleepy heron, pointing his big old beak at the water. The female has a rusty belt that gives the species its name; I’ve not spotted a female yet, only the males with their slate blue ascots.

This one was persistent enough a hunter that even after a dog walker scared him away—the man saw me down by the water, and couldn’t help calling out loudly, “That’s a good viewpoint!” To which I replied, “It was!”

But my crankiness was unfounded, as the kingfisher returned to a different perch on a small branch, which gave me the opportunity to photograph him from slightly better light. These aren’t great photos, I know, but they are the “best” I’ve taken yet of a bird that I love watching.

Someone on Reddit asked the difference between a favorite bird and a “spark bird.” A spark bird is the one that gets someone into birding; for me, that is the Northern Flicker, which I saw in my backyard in 2021 not long after moving down to the Pinelands. Speckled and large, with a piercing cry and a red spot, they are easy to identify but sometimes hard to spot, as like many woodpeckers, they like the Catbird seat. (That means a high vantage point, which the Catbirds around here don’t seem to prefer, but it’s persisted as a saying.)

A favorite bird can change. Blue Jays remain in rotation; they are brassy and bold and pretty, and never boring. Lately, my favorite is the Belted Kingfisher, because they are also blue, and sport that Manic Panic mohawk above a beezer that approaches Pete Townsend’s. They aren’t as bold as Jays in tolerating human proximity, but they dive for small fish dozens of times per day. If you want to see brilliant photos of them by a great photographer and naturalist, check out the newsletter of Charlie Hamilton James.

Here’s that Downy Woodpecker:

And an American Robin, reminding us that as common as they are, they should never be taken for granted:

If you watch PBS, I enjoyed the episode of Nature about Willow the Mountain Lion, who raised six cubs successfully in one season! Watching her bring down a 400lb elk in deep snow to feed her brood as something else. Trail cams are letting us see so much that we couldn’t, before. There’s a short interlude where a vixen returns to dig up the cubs that where killed and cached by a transient male mountain lion, moving their bodies so they can’t be eaten. That is not the behavior of a “dumb animal,” in my opinion… we can longer deny that they are emotional creatures with distinct personalities.

I’m reading Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, after hearing Kent Peterson talk about his books. I’d only read The Crying of Lot 49 previously, but I had an original paperback of GR on my shelf for decades, so I’m finally doing it. I finished Book One, and I’m enjoying the madness.

Some other good things I’ve read recently: