Don’t they get shitfaced on the little red berries or was that just an urban myth?

Just a little. They have a kick ass liver that can handle absurd amounts of alcohol.

Waxwings are such pretty birds.

Oh that was it! I can’t remember the cause but IIRC there was something that caused the uhhhh pirocantha (SP?) berries to be extremely abundant or something similar that years. Early 80’s… I was a child but it was very upsetting… I want to say 2-3 birds hit the windows or sliding glass doors a day. Fortunately most were barely even phased, but it was very creepy. Also fortunately, I was too young to have seen Hitchcock’s The Birds.

The bohemian waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) can crash into windows just like any other bird. Glass and reflections can be very deceiving. Being drunk is unlikely to be the cause, since their liver burns alcohol about 8 times as fast as the human liver. Also, the rowan berries (Sorbus aucuparia) don’t always contain notable amounts of ethanol. It’s a bit of a gamble, but these birds are well prepared anyway.

Obviously, I’m not an ornithologist… but they were acting weird, moving erratically… kind of like very slow hummingbirds if that makes sense. Maybe they were just catching bugs…

IDK… local news was all we had, I remember a tiny article in the San Jose Mercury… and I remember a lot of berries, but not like 3x as many as the year before. So I’m inclined to agree with you. An early spring or something, maybe more baby birds… but drunk birds made better news. And if one outfit reports it that’s really all it took for a dozen other sources to just quote the first. I certainly don’t remember any experts weighing in or who the Mercury cited.

Honestly hadn’t thought of it in years, but the photo made some rusty neuron roll over in its grave 🧠🪦