Bohemian Waxwings “Flock” to the City
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PRINCE GEORGE – You may have noticed flocks of birds through town lately making formations in the sky, and landing on trees.
Bohemian Waxwings are birds who winter in Northern BC, and summer in the boreal forests of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The nomadic birds are attracted to dried fruit and can be seen looking for food in trees like the Mountain Ash.
As for the formations in the sky, “the flocking behaviour is just one of the ways the birds actually find food. It’s kind of like a many eyes type of thing where you have alot of birds that are on the search for food and they’ll follow each other around, they just naturally follow each other and that co-ordinates these flocks,” says UNBC Biologist Ken Otter.
A recent Christmas bird count saw three times as many birds as usual in the Prince George area, allowing for more sightings of these winter visitors this year.
