Tag: western kingbird

The Western Kingbird and the Beetle

This will be another behavioral post – yes I am fascinated by interesting behaviors, perhaps overly so… I found this Western Kingbird hunting from a barbed wire perch which is quite typical for the species.  It was so focused on its prey that it let me get quite close so I was able to get better detail of the feeding behavior than I normally do.    1/500, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  The kingbird has spotted prey on the ground      1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  so it flew down to retrieve it.  In this case it happened to be a beetle.  You can see it clinging upside down to the darker diagonal twig just in front of the bird.      1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Here’s a highly cropped version of the previous image to show the beetle better.      1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc The bird grabbed the beetle but as you can see it had reached “through” the twig to get it      1/1250, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc so it got more than it bargained for.  The end of the twig broke off and wedged between the beetles abdomen and the upper mandible.      1/1000, f/8, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc So it flew back to its wire perch and tried to figure out what to do about the dilemma.  It actually spent about 15 seconds just sitting there and staring at what was in its…

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Western Kingbirds

Yesterday was a slow day on the island, though we did see our first Western Kingbird of the year (I should say that Mia saw it as I missed it – one of the disadvantages of being the driver…).  The sighting got me to thinking about these aggressive tyrant flycatchers and reminded me of how much I’ve missed them these last few months so I decided to devote a post to them. They’re called “kingbirds” because of their belligerent behavior and fearless nature.  Kingbirds are very aggressive toward other birds and it’s not unusual to see them attacking almost any species – including hawks and American Kestrels.  They’re extremely agile in flight and can get away with such seemingly foolish behaviors.    1/800, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc In this shot you can see most if the important field marks – pale gray head and breast, darker mask through the eyes, underparts yellow, tail black with white edges and black bill.  The sexes are similar.  Most folks are unaware that the species has a small orange-red patch on the top of the head but it is nearly always hidden except while performing certain behaviors.      1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc These birds are almost unknown to walk anywhere – virtually all locomotion is by flight.  Typically they hunt from elevated perches so they flit from perch to perch looking for insects mostly.  When I’m lucky I find them on natural perches like this dried thistle…      1/1250, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4,…

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