{"id":111179,"date":"2022-05-16T05:07:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T11:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=111179"},"modified":"2022-05-16T08:29:01","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T14:29:01","slug":"western-kingbird-playing-catch-with-his-breakfast-repeatedly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/16\/western-kingbird-playing-catch-with-his-breakfast-repeatedly\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Kingbird Playing Catch With His Breakfast, Repeatedly"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll document interesting behaviors even when the bird is far away and the late morning light is becoming harsh.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Yesterday morning I watched through my lens as this faraway Western Kingbird beat the crap out of a fairly large insect by repeatedly whapping it against the dried sunflower twig ‘he’ was perched on. It wasn’t until I got home and looked at my photos more carefully that I realized that I’d captured him throwing the insect up in the air before catching it again and then swallowing it.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after he swallowed the bug, he captured another insect and flew with it to a nearby barbed wire fence.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Imagine my surprise when I looked at my photos and realized that I’d captured him throwing the second insect into the air too. It looks to me like the two insects might be of the same species but they’re definitely two different bugs.<\/p>\n

I’ve always been a little jealous of bird photographers who regularly photograph various species of African, Asian or European bee-eaters tossing bees, wasps and other insects into the air before swallowing them. So it was fun to capture the behavior twice with this kingbird.<\/p>\n

Next time, if there is a next time, I hope the bird will be closer and in better light.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll document interesting behaviors even when the bird is far away and the late morning light is becoming harsh. (2 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,334,392,395,675],"tags":[689,6338,677,311,676],"class_list":["post-111179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-miscellaneous","category-western-kingbirds","tag-box-elder-county","tag-throwing-insect-into-the-air","tag-tyrannus-verticalus","tag-utah-2","tag-western-kingbird"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/western-kingbird-2393-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-sVd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111179"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111203,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111179\/revisions\/111203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}