Birds Using Bison Hair As Nesting Material

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.

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Loggerhead Shrikes “Mate Feeding”

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.

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Mockingbird Flight Display (and a change in shooting technique)

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.

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Burrowing Owl On A Boulder Perch

Six days ago on Antelope Island as I rounded a curve in the road I encountered this Burrowing Owl on a large rock with a clean setting and background. It was a cool morning and the sun had only recently come up so this bird was obviously enjoying the warming rays and showed no nervousness as I approached.

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A Badger And Weasel Confrontation On Antelope Island

Yesterday morning we were witness to a tense drama involving a badger and Long-tailed Weasels on Antelope Island. American badgers feed primarily on rodents (ground squirrels, pocket gophers, rats, mice and voles) which they often capture by digging out their burrows – the digging skills of badgers are legendary.

But on this day a close relative was on the menu.

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