Plus de photos

Bombycilla cedrorum

The red-to-orange drupes persist on female trees through winter as a food source for birds - Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder lists the species as attracting birds, and cedar waxwings are characteristic late-winter consumers of persistent holly fruit.

The ripe fruit attracts fruit-eating birds; the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the fruit as a wildlife food (Fruit-birds), and frugivorous songbirds such as the cedar waxwing feed on persimmons.

Cedar waxwing flocks strip arrowwood viburnum drupes during fall migration.

NC State explicitly names cedar waxwings among the songbirds that eat the dark berries; the late-summer / early-fall ripening timing aligns with cedar waxwing flock foraging patterns.

Flocking waxwings feed on the winter fruit and help spread the seed, contributing to the species' escape into wild land.

Cedar waxwings are highly frugivorous and commonly take beautyberry alongside the named consumers, though the fetched primary source did not list them specifically, so this is held at plausible rather than documented.

The red-to-orange drupes persist on female trees through winter as a food source for birds - Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder lists the species as attracting birds, and cedar waxwings are characteristic late-winter consumers of persistent holly fruit.

The ripe fruit attracts fruit-eating birds; the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents the fruit as a wildlife food (Fruit-birds), and frugivorous songbirds such as the cedar waxwing feed on persimmons.

Cedar waxwing flocks strip arrowwood viburnum drupes during fall migration.

The Missouri Botanical Garden notes the showy orange fruit ripens in late fall and may persist on bare branches into winter - persistent soft fruit at that season is the kind of resource fruit-eating songbirds such as cedar waxwings take, though the PlantFinder profile does not name specific birds.

A representative of the fruit-eating songbirds that strip the late-summer drupes; cedar waxwings are classic consumers of cherry-type drupes within the 33-bird-species fruit value the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents.

NC State explicitly names cedar waxwings among the songbirds that eat the dark berries; the late-summer / early-fall ripening timing aligns with cedar waxwing flock foraging patterns.

Fruit-eating birds such as cedar waxwings strip ripe berry clusters in late summer.

Flocking waxwings feed on the winter fruit and help spread the seed, contributing to the species' escape into wild land.

Cedar waxwings travel in flocks and can strip a serviceberry tree clean in a single afternoon visit; one of the most famous wildlife-vs-gardener fruit competitions.

Waxwings strip fruiting shrubs in winter flocks and the drupes persist into the cold months, so this is a very likely user, but it is inferred from waxwing feeding behaviour and the documented bird attraction rather than from a species-specific record for Ilex cornuta. Graded plausible on purpose.

Waxwings are named for juniper: the cedar in cedar waxwing is Juniperus virginiana, whose cones they strip in winter flocks. They take planted ornamental junipers the same way, so a fruiting female Chinese juniper feeds them where it is grown. Recorded here as forages-fruit because the vocabulary has no cone term - what the bird is eating is a fleshy CONE, not a berry, which is the structural oddity of this whole genus.

Cedar waxwings are fruit specialists that feed heavily on native cherries; the sources document chokecherry fruit as broadly important bird food, so waxwing use is expected though not named species-by-species.

Ripe figs are a soft, sugar-rich fruit readily taken by frugivorous songbirds such as cedar waxwings where the trees fruit; prompt human harvest competes with birds for the crop.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents cedar waxwings among the many birds - including quail, pheasants, and woodpeckers - that consume the purple drupes, which persist on the tree into winter when other food is scarce.

Waxwings work fruiting junipers in flocks, and the two-to-three-year ripening cycle is why: a mature female carries cones in more than one age class, so the supply outlasts the single autumn flush that most berrying shrubs offer. Juniper is a classic late-winter waxwing food when everything softer has been stripped.

Waxwings are the classic juniper-cone specialists among North American birds, moving in flocks and stripping fruiting plants in winter. The catch with creeping juniper specifically is supply: a cultivar bank of one clone bears no cones at all, so this relationship is often absent from exactly the plantings that contain the most of the species.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center notes the juicy "berries" are consumed by many kinds of wildlife, including the cedar waxwing, which is named for this tree.

Cedar waxwings strip ripe drupes from dogwood trees in late summer and fall, as they do with serviceberry and winterberry - a flock can clear a tree in a single visit. Dogwood drupes are a meaningful fall-migration food source for waxwings + thrushes.

Waxwings move in flocks and strip a fruiting shrub in a single visit, which matches the observed behaviour of this crop - the white drupes commonly disappear within days of ripening, leaving the red pedicels bare. That rapid clearance is why the record treats the naked red stalks, not the berries, as the reliable autumn display.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center records the red haws as fruit for birds; the fruit persists into winter, feeding cedar waxwings and other fruit-eating songbirds when little else is available.

Cedar waxwings forage Nandina domestica berries, particularly in late winter when other food sources are depleted. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandina) documents that EXCESSIVE consumption causes fatal cyanide toxicosis in cedar waxwings - a documented wildlife hazard, not a benefit. Flagged here as harm: birds that gorge on the fruit can be killed by it.

Plotwright. (n.d.). Jaseur d'Amérique (Bombycilla cedrorum). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/cedar-waxwing