This is Bird Note.

In winter, when snow blankets the northern states, nearly all of the beautiful songbirds

that grace the days of summer are long gone.

They're living out the cold months in warmer climbs, but there's one special winter visitor

that goes a long way to filling the absence left by the birds of summer.

Picture a starling-sized bird with a swanky crest, a black mask.

Wings painted in red, yellow, black and white, and a tail boldly tipped with yellow.

This glamorous winter visitor is the Bohemian wax wing.

In Bohemian wax wings appear on the scene, they arrive in flocks, often numbering in

the hundreds.

They roam the landscape in search of winter fruits, berries of mountain ash or juniper,

rose hymns, even unpicked apples.

In autumn, departing their summer haunts in the boreal forest, wax wings wander south

into the northern states and along the Rockies.

Some years they venture even farther south.

In fact, it's this itinerant life that earned them the name Bohemian, although the name

seems equally well suited to their unconventional and exquisite appearance.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.