Waxwings feasting on sumac fruit

A gorgeous pre-dawn sunrise. Sunrises always look best before the sun crests the horizon. The colors are much more vivid. Back on February 15, I took a long overdue trip to the central basin region of Lake Erie. As I passed through Crawford County north of Bucyrus, the eastern skyline kept intensifying in color. Finally, I could no longer stand it and pulled onto a side road to make this shot. It was 7 F at the time and cold temperatures seem to bring out the best in sunrises.

After a highly productive day of finding and photographing a variety of birds, I stopped in at a prairie relict near Castalia, in Erie County. A Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) has been hanging in the vicinity, and I missed seeing the bird at the usual haunts - the only real miss that I had on this day. Anyway, I figured I'd get out on foot for a while, see what I could see, and hope that the big eagle might pass over. One usually sees far more on foot than in a vehicle.

At one point, a bunch of American Robins (Turdus migratorius) flew into a nearby Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides). They were mostly quiet, only giving whisper calls amongst each other. I figured they had a target and a plan, and sure enough a little way over was a fine grove of Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra) with plenty of fruit.

A stand of Smooth Sumac loaded with tasty fruit. There are four species of sumac in the genus Rhus in Ohio, and all produce fruit coveted by birds. One species, Fragrant Sumac (R. aromatica) is much shorter in stature than the others, and because it is somewhat easier to manage, it's probably the most frequently used in landscaping. However, the three bigger species produce more fruit, and put those colorful fruiting clusters high in the air where the birds can't miss them.

An American Robin feasts on sumac fruit. Many of his compadres joined him.

This situation was a photographic goldmine, especially to me because of my long-going effort to document animals feeding on or otherwise using native flora. The problem was that I was exactly on the wrong side of the light - looking straight into the late day sun. Fortunately, I had my lightweight Canon R5 and 400 DO II (with 1.4x extender) in hand. Eventually I was able to work around the sumac colony and get the light behind me, without spooking the birds. Moving through the prairie vegetation with a bigger rig and cumbersome tripod would have made it much harder to move stealthily and not spook the birds.

A gorgeous adult Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) looks about from a bare shrub. As I got into good position, I heard the high-pitched wheezy trills of waxwings. Major bonus! Cedar Waxwings often occur with robins in winter, as they are after the same fruits. While I did have robin/sumac shots, I had never captured waxwings feeding on sumac fruit, so they quickly became my priority.

The waxwings - there were only a few - would stage on a bare shrub to look about before dropping into the sumac. I missed shooting the first few birds, but not this one. The animal posed stunningly for a second or two, glancing over its shoulder, crest erect, and wings and tail splayed slightly to reveal their colorful charms.

PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTE: When the light is abundant, as it was here, I prefer to stop down to f/8 or even f/11 if possible. I almost always shoot birds in manual mode, with the ISO on auto. I watch the ISO like a hawk, and it can largely drive what aperture and shutter speed that I use. In a perfect world (for me) the ISO is no higher than 500-800. Low ISOs mean less noisy images, especially if much cropping is necessary. Cameras are getting better at processing higher ISO settings, but I still do what I can to keep them as low as possible. Anyway, the settings for this shot were: f/8, 1/1000, ISO 320, with 0.3+ EV. In hindsight I probably would have stopped down to f/9 or f/10 and dropped the shutter speed to 1/640 or so but I'm nitpicking my efforts.

Caught in the act! An amazing array of songbirds feed on sumac. I've probably photographed 15 species on it and have seen a number of others eating it that I could not photograph. And I should say that it's not just songbirds. Woodpeckers, especially the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), often visit sumac to plunder the berries.

If you are looking for good bird photography opportunities, stake out a sumac stand in winter. With some patience (and quietness) you'll almost certainly be rewarded with interesting opportunities of birds interacting with these showy native treelets.