![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/spring-snowstorm-4-12-22.jpg\" "\\"spring-snowstorm-4-12-22")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis is what I woke up to yesterday morning, a spring snowstorm that left about 3″ of snow in my back yard and significantly more in other parts of the Salt Lake Valley. Here the snow looks blue-ish because the photo was taken with my cell phone before sunrise. The forecast was for clouds and more snow for the rest of the day so I didn’t go shooting.<\/p>\n
About midmorning, on my way home from buying groceries, I decided on a whim to visit a local park to look for birds feeding on last year’s shriveled up crabapples. I didn’t have my big lens with me but I always carry my ‘baby lens’ in my pickup so if I found any birds I could at least document any interesting avian surprises I stumbled upon. Or I could go home and quickly grab my big lens. It was mostly cloudy so I didn’t have any real hope for quality photos.<\/p>\n
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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I found European Starlings and American Robins feeding, or attempting to feed, on the snow-covered crabapples (there’s a ‘suckerhole’ of blue sky behind the starling but most of the sky was cloudy). This time of year, when there isn’t any snow, the crabapples that have fallen to the ground are easy pickin’s for birds. But with that much snow on the ground the fallen crabapples can’t be seen, much less found and eaten, so the birds were trying to find them and eat them in the snow-covered trees.<\/p>\n Most or all of the starlings were using the same strategy. They were perched on the tops of the trees and trying to find and reach crabapples through all of that snow. Good luck with that!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This was the only starling that I saw actually eat a crabapple but ‘he’…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n really had to work at finding and reaching it. I had no idea a starling could stretch its neck this far. Most of the other starlings just seemed to perch on the tops of the small trees in apparent hunger and frustration.<\/p>\n I’ve presented these three starling photos out of order. Photo #1 was taken after photo #2 and #3, as evidenced by the crabapple stem without a crabapple on it and the snow on top of the starling’s head in photo #1.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n But the feeding strategy of the robins was different and more effective. They perched in the lower branches of the trees close to the trunks where there was much less snow to hide the crabapples. And whenever they felt the urge they would pick off one of the many shriveled fruits available to them down there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n The only problem the robins had was getting the crabapples off of the stems. They’re hard to pull off so they had to work at it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Here the robin is twisting the stem one way and then…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n yanking it another.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n And it worked.<\/p>\n The robin enjoyed its snack amongst the many other crabapples that it could pick off at its leisure. I never once saw a starling using this more effective feeding strategy. They just stayed at the top of the trees and occasionally tried to find a crabapple, usually without success from what I saw.<\/p>\n But then I wasn’t there for very long so maybe the starlings figured it out after I left.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some birds are ‘smarter’ than others, or at least their feeding strategies seem to be more effective in difficult situations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n