Waxwings | Bombycillidae

Compact songbirds with a strikingly soft, dense plumage without spot or streak, a crest, a black mask and a short bill with a wide gape. The red, horny plates at the tips of the secondaries, which give the family its name, occur in no other group of birds; the tail ends in a bright yellow or red band. For most of the year they live on berries, swallowed whole and passed through a short gut in minutes, so that a flock can work through an enormous quantity; in the breeding season they take insects on the wing over water. They defend no feeding territory and have no true song, only high silvery trills that keep the flock together. The nest is a loose cup of twigs, moss and lichen on a side branch, and the breeding area shifts from year to year with the berry crop.