Vesper Sparrows are “dust bathers”. They do it so often that they’re known for having puffs of dust fly off of them when they’re flushed and take off. In fact, Birds of North America Online says they’re “not observed to bathe in water”. This Vesper Sparrow didn’t read the book.
When common birds perform uncommon behaviors it catches my eye. And hopefully my lens. This was a behavior completely new to me for this species.
Juvenile Black-billed Magpies have significantly less iridescence in their plumage than the adults so the amount that appeared in this young bird surprised me.
The nesting season of Mountain Bluebirds in Montana’s Centennial Valley was delayed this year due to a late spring cold snap so during my visit there last week some of them were still feeding youngsters in the nest boxes. I’ve found it to be relatively easy to photograph the parent birds on top of the nest boxes with insects for the chicks in their beaks but catching them in flight as they leave the nest with fecal sacs is another story altogether.
During our last Montana trip we had multiple sessions over several days with a very cooperative Savannah Sparrow – “cooperative” in the sense that the bird could always be found in the same spot along the shore of Lower Red Rock Lake in Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.
On a dark, cloudy morning on Antelope Island last month I had an opportunity with a displaying Northern Mockingbird. The shooting conditions were difficult but I decided to play at the edge of the limits of my gear and see what I could get. These shots are not sequential of the same take-off and landing but in the order I’ve presented them I think they illustrate the behavior reasonably well.
After eight years of photographing birds it’s not every day that I see something new but yesterday I did.
This spring I’ve had several opportunities to photograph the courtship “flight display” of the male Northern Mockingbird. While singing continuously from his perch he jumps almost straight up about six feet as he flaps his wings a couple of times which displays those conspicuous white wing patches and then parachutes down with wings open to the same perch. This performance is repeated every 30-60 seconds or so for an extended period of time.
In some circles the Turkey Vulture isn’t the most popular kid on the block but to me they’re as deserving of our respect and admiration as any other native bird.
Most of the Sandhill Crane behaviors I observed last week were typical for the species but one was quite unusual.
Two weeks ago I reported a banded Tundra Swan I photographed at Salt Creek WMA. It wasn’t long before I received some interesting information back about that bird from the North American Bird Banding Program.
Though I regularly watch birds as they preen it’s not often that I’m able to actually see the preen (uropygial) gland.
Because of their comical tendencies, expressive faces and uninhibited behaviors juvenile Burrowing Owls just may be the most interesting and entertaining birds I photograph.
This is a look and pose I’ve noticed fairly often from Red-tailed Hawks in conditions like this but I rarely see the same from a harrier.
