The Bohemian waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) is a starling-sized passerine bird that breeds in the northern forests of the Palearctic and North America.

In some years, large numbers of Bohemian waxwings irrupt well beyond their normal winter range in search of the fruit that makes up most of their diet.

Waxwings can be very tame in winter, entering towns and gardens in search of food, rowan berries being a particular favourite.

The waxwings are a family, Bombycillidae, of short-tailed stocky birds with soft plumage, a head crest and distinctively patterned wings and tails.

Outside the genus, the closest relatives of the waxwings are believed to be the silky-flycatchers, the palmchat, and the grey hypocolius, all of which have sometimes been included in the Bombycillidae.

[4][a] The genus name Bombycilla comes from the Greek bombux, "silk" and the Modern Latin cilla, "tail";[7] this is a direct translation of the German Seidenschwanz, "silk-tail", and refers to the silky-soft plumage of the bird.

The adult's secondaries end in long red appendages with the sealing wax appearance that gives the bird its English name.

Females are very similar to males, but have a narrower (4–8 mm) yellow terminal band to the tail, a less defined lower edge to the black throat and slightly fewer red tips, 5–7, on the secondaries.

The American subspecies B. g. pallidiceps has more colouring on the cheeks and forehead than the nominate form and is otherwise generally duller in appearance.

[2] The red waxy tips are the extended and flattened ends of feather shafts, pigmented with astaxanthin and enclosed in a transparent sheath.

[25] Although not a call as such, when a flock takes off or lands, the wings make a distinctive rattling sound that can be heard 30 m (98 ft) away.

In Eurasia, its northern nesting limit is just short of the treeline, roughly at the 10 °C July isotherm, and it breeds south locally to about 51°N.

More open, wet areas such as lakes and peat swamps with dead and drowned trees are used for feeding on insects.

[20][31] Outside the breeding season, the waxwing will occupy a wide range of habitats as long as suitable fruit such as rowan are available.

[2] Bohemian waxwings start their return from the wintering grounds in February or March, but northern breeders do not reach their breeding areas until April or early May.

The breeding display is almost the opposite of this; the male erects his body and crest feathers, and turns his head away from the female.

The male may repeatedly present a gift of a small item, often food, to his partner, placing it in her open bill.

[25] The nest, built by both sexes, is a cup of thin twigs lined with softer material such as fine grass, moss, fur or lichen.

The chicks are altricial and naked, and have bright red mouths; they are fed by both parents, although the male brings most of the food, mainly insects, in the first few days.

[18] Significant causes of death include predation,[25] collisions with windows and cars,[2] and poisoning by road salt consumed when drinking.

In the summer, Vaccinium and Rubus species and Canada buffaloberry are important items of their diet, while cotoneaster, juniper, haws, rose hips and apples predominate outside the breeding season.

[15] Waxwings can eat huge numbers of berries, each bird sometimes consuming several hundred a day, more than double its own weight.

[25] Waxwings often drink water or eat snow in winter, since the sugar in their fruit diet tends to dehydrate the birds through an osmotic effect.

The juniper berries on which they fed were thought to offer protection, and people consumed the fruit and burned branches to fumigate their houses.

This suggests that in the past, perhaps 3 million years ago, the ancestral waxwing was a host of a brood parasitic species, and retains the rejection behaviour acquired then.

[42] Bohemian waxwings may carry flatworms and tapeworms, but levels of parasitic worm infestation are generally low.

Although this species' population, as of 2013, appears to be declining, the decrease is not rapid nor large enough to trigger conservation vulnerability criteria.

Given its high numbers and huge breeding area, this waxwing is therefore classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of least concern.