In fact, the solitaire demonstrated his fussiness about food on two separate occasions and in two different ways.
- I wasn’t very close to this bird and it shows in the image quality. And several of the photos aren’t as sharp as they should be but I thought the behavior was sufficiently interesting to overlook those deficiencies.
Sibley describes Townsend’s Solitaires as “uncommon” and based on my experience with them that’s an accurate assessment in my area. But yesterday in the Wasatch Mountains, in contradiction to the “solitaire” portion of their common name, I encountered three of them together.
This one landed on a Hawthorn bush and was eyeing the berries that are left this late in the season. ‘He’ (once again I don’t know the sex of the bird) did pluck one and I wondered how he made his choice. After all, there’s many to choose from and you’d think he’d choose the one that was easiest to get at. Or maybe he could discern quality differences in them and was willing to work a little harder to get the berry that would likely taste best.
My guess would be that he’d pluck one of them right in front of him because they were most accessible. But no, he had to make life difficult and even a little dangerous.
He had his eye on this one, the one marked with the red arrow. And it was quite a challenging berry to pluck safely, especially considering that wicked-looking spine just to its right.
He took off and even in flight he may have been making his decision as to how to approach the plucking process.
But even at this point he seemed a little tentative about how he’d get it done. That’s really a mean-looking spine.
In the end he was careful to avoid the spine as he plucked the berry without really landing…
and took his prize to a…
safer and more stable perch.
At this point it looked like he might be testing the berry for a few moments to see if it met his standards. Apparently it didn’t.
So he deliberately dropped it…
and it fell to the ground without him even watching its descent. In my experience birds usually watch something fall if they’ve dropped it accidentally.
So this bird demonstrated his discerning tastes two separate times – when he chose a more difficult berry to pluck when easier ones were readily available and when he eventually rejected the chosen berry.
His picky eating habits remind me of several of my friends.
Ron
PS – Temps were as low as +15 F. in the mountains yesterday at an elevation that wasn’t really all that high. Winter really is on its way.
Ron,
I love your photographs and this series is spectacular!
I just have a small nit to pick, if I may: your birds of “unknown sex” seem to be called “he” much more frequently than “she”.
I know that this is your wonderful blog.
I’m just saying that I notice this, and I personally would prefer “it” to “he all the time”.
I love your photographs!
Sue
Sue, I hope to address that issue in an upcoming blog post.
YUK!
Yuk what…?
Like the squirrels in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — a “bad nut.” 🙂
🙂
Great shots Ron, wonderful post of an unusual bird to have here in VT or in my original state of MA where I got my life Townsend’s Solitaires.
Beautiful bird.
They’re uncommon here too, Dick. I see one occasionally and then it’ll be many months before I see another one. Thanks.
Wonderful behavioral series Ron! Thanks for sharing!
Charlotte Norton
Thanks, Charlotte.
Awesome pictures and story! Thanks very much.
Thank you, Joanne.
Thank you for helping me to identify a bird I saw at City of Rocks National Reserve! At the time and ever since, I hadn’t been able to identify it. When I saw the first picture in your post I realized that the bird I had seen must have been a Townsend’s Solitaire, since their postures were very similar. The white eye ring and long tail are quite distinctive. At first I thought my “mystery bird” looked like either a large flycatcher or a vireo. Thank you for your interesting posts!
Good. I’m happy to hear it was helpful to you with your ID, Aidan. Thanks for letting me know.
Nice story and photos, Ron. This bird reminds me of the Brewer’s Blackbird of a couple of days ago.
Thank you, Lyle.
Maybe he was looking for the fermented ones. Not a good vintage this year perhaps.
Could be, Mike. On the flip side a Facebook friend suggested that he might have rejected it because it WAS fermented. Who knows…
I could almost hear a “ptooie” when he spat the berry out. 😀
Whaddya mean, almost. I did hear it… 🙂
Ha ha!!
It’s very interesting to see a bird deliberately reject food that appears perfectly good. One one occasion with the first nesting of the Kestrels in our neighbors’ palm tree, we watch the female baby accidentally drop the lizard one of her parents had just given her. She definitely watched it. And for a long time, even though she was high up in the tree. She clearly knew she wasn’t going to get another one any time soon. It was a very memorable experience for us, as well as her. Winter is definitely on the way here, too. Our high yesterday was 47º, which seems to be at least a month early.
Susan, when they drop stuff accidentally they always seem to watch it fall and sometimes they even retrieve it.
What a charming story! And I found no lack of sharpness in the photos. Thanks for sharing.
I’m glad you liked the story, Pauline. Thanks.
Love the action photos Ron. I have only seen them here once or twice. Like the Solitaire I am also unfortunately a picky eater.
Everett Sanborn
Prescott AZ
Everett, I won’t touch canned asparagus or Spanish rice with a 30′ pole!
That takes pickiness to a whole new level. I cannot imagine discarding a titbit I had risked impaling myself for.
Yet another fascinating behavioural series – thank you.
“I cannot imagine discarding a titbit I had risked impaling myself for”
I like the way you said that, EC. Wish I’d thought to put it that way in my text.
Wow, you’re up late…
Voluntary work is keeping me up again. And I took advantage of a brief respite to view your post.
Interesting! Wonder how picky they are when food isn’t so abundant? 😉 Beautiful bird that must be eating well to be so picky as to go through the gymnastics necessary to get “that” berry and then reject it………
I don’t thick they’d be nearly as fussy if food was scarce, Judy. I’ve seen birds eating things far removed from their usual diet during hard winters – Song Sparrows eating fish for example.