For millennia a variety of North American bird species used bison hair during nest construction but when the “buffalo” was brought to the brink of extinction by hunters in the late 1800’s that resource was essentially gone. Today there are relatively few places where bison hair is available to birds and Antelope Island is one of them.
Yesterday morning we photographed an industrious female Western Kingbird as she worked at constructing her nest. In this species the sexes are similar but only the female builds the nest. The male hung around nearby as he watched over the laborious construction process and offered his mate encouragement (that was good of him don’t you think?).
Last week on our Montana camping trip the House Wrens were incredibly persistent when trying to get long or awkwardly-shaped twigs into the nest holes in the aspen.
During our Montana camping trip last week we found a dead aspen that had five nest holes in various stages of excavation and use.
Two days ago as I was photographing this dark morph Swainson’s Hawk on a power pole something completely unexpected happened and this time I was ready for it.
Five days ago I posted a series of images of a male Loggerhead Shrike feeding his mate (a ritual that is part of the pair bond between mated birds) and at the time I mentioned that I had photographed the same behavior the day before from the same birds. This is that sequence of images.
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.
Male Loggerhead Shrikes feed their mates beginning with the formation of pair bonds in early spring and such behavior continues throughout the incubation and nestling periods.
Antelope Island is crawling (and flying) with “bugs” right now. Mosquitoes are common, flying midges are thick as are the dreaded biting gnats (I call this the “itching and bitching” season).
Western Grebes are almost exclusively fish-eaters but yesterday morning at Bear River MBR I photographed one consuming a crayfish.
Yesterday morning was a Western Kingbird bonanza along the Antelope Island causeway.
Northern Mockingbirds have three known courtship displays. I was able to photograph one of them, called the “flight display”, three days ago on Antelope Island.
