MM, What a wonderful experience! As you have seen, the story that birds will abandon babies and nests if they smell humans is an old wive's tale. I have been fortunate to have bluebirds nest in my yard, and they will even tolerate a nest change when it has been extremely necessary. Some species are more wary than others, but most have a very poor sense of smell. I have found most of the songbirds that actually take care of their young (other than cowbirds) are actually very loyal to them. They will risk their own safety (to a point) to insure the babies' survival. Nature does bless them with enough sense to preserve their own life in extreme threats (like wasps) however. After all, baby songbirds have a 1 in 2 chance of making through the first year. It wouldn't make sense for the breeding pair to throw all caution to the wind and give up their own lives. They can always go on and raise another brood afterall.

Fantastic photos of the bluebirds and waxwings together. That is luck to see them together, let alone get a good photo. We have waxwings here all summer, but so often they are high up in trees, most people don't notice them. They like black cherries, and when i canoe the river i see them flycatching alot. And congrats newyorkrita on your bird garden paying off. Glad the Wentworths were well used, so many people report birds not touching the highbush cranberries. I saw cardinals picking at them once, but i think they were only after the pits inside. I may have to think about planting a Cardinal Candy viburnum. Winterberries - ive never had those last late in the year. I had a robin that would camp out until they were all gone, in December.

guess I'm lucky I don't have any trees with berries. Whatever they are eating is on my neighbor's property that meets our driveway. I know there are lilac bushes and a honeysuckle shrub there but don't think they have berries on them. I didn't know anything about these birds but noticing them the first time, I was excited to see them and know what they were from my reference book. I've fed hummers for several years now but I'm kinda new to other birds LOL.

Cedar Waxwings are timing with their nestlings on the oncoming of their favored berries to feed their young, not sure what that would be in your area, find out and then go with this plant. Cedars just about eating anything when it comes to berries, just make sure this fruit is ripening at the time of hatchlings. Here it's the native Saskatoon's, Cedar's should just about now build their nest here. As for Winter food, they like chokecherries, crab apples and some mountain ash.