intoxicating

We often get wild surprises around here. Like the pair of Red-Tailed hawks that have been hunting on the Hill. The red-tails seem to be staying lower to the ground as they fly past the house going from the woods across the road to their favorite perch on top of our barn. One afternoon a hawk decided to stop halfway and perch from a fence post just a few yards from the house.

Yesterday my folks stopped by and had coffee. My dad called from the living room and said there was a large group of Cedar Waxwings just outside the front door. We counted 19 of them. The waxwings have been here before, but never in such large numbers. We have four ancient red cedar trees that were planted when the house was constructed in 1865 that form a line between our drive and the front of the house. Cedar Waxwings love cedar berries, as their name would imply. And they were feasting on the berries that had dropped to the ground late last fall and have been covered by snow the last three months. I mentioned this to a fellow birder and he asked me if they were drunk. What? He then explained that often the old berries have fermented and the waxwings have been known to become intoxicated. I told him that must have been why one was wearing a lampshade and another kept telling me he loved me......