{"id":111305,"date":"2022-05-19T05:34:51","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T11:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=111305"},"modified":"2022-05-19T07:37:20","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T13:37:20","slug":"northern-mockingbird-flight-display-an-entire-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/19\/northern-mockingbird-flight-display-an-entire-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Mockingbird Flight Display – An Entire Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally, a goal achieved but it took me almost ten years.<\/p>\n

Twelve days ago I posted a series of photos of a male Northern Mockingbird performing the distinctive courtship display of the species referred to as the “flight display”. But that series was incomplete because I lost focus on the bird during his performance so I left many photos out. For years it’s been one of my goals to photograph the display from beginning to end without any skips or soft photos and yesterday on Antelope Island I finally succeeded. Multiple times.<\/p>\n

Part of the trouble I’ve had in the past has been that I was too close to include both the bird and the bush it had been perched on in most or all of the photos. Including both is preferrable for two reasons: it provides the desired perspective of how far the bird is above the bush at every point during the performance and (for complicated reasons) it makes it easier for me to keep the bird in the frame and in sharp focus.<\/p>\n

Here’s how Cornell’s Birds of the World describes the flight display of the Northern Mockingbird (I included this description in my post 12 days ago). You be the judge of how accurately Cornell describes what I photographed.<\/p>\n

\u201cA \u201cflight display\u201d is given from a high singing perch. A singing male jumps upward, flaps his wings once or several times, ascends a meter or two above the perch, and then parachutes down, wings open, onto the same or a nearby perch. White wing patches are conspicuous during the display, and the bird sings continuously.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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I’m posting one of yesterday’s performances below. The first 11 photos are sequential without any skips. The photos mostly speak for themselves so I’ll keep my narration to a minimum.<\/p>\n

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I don’t know whether to call this photo the end of his previous flight display or the beginning of his next performance because this time he performed again immediately after landing following his previous display.<\/p>\n

All the tiny black specks you see are midges that were disturbed by his landing. Thankfully, that early in the morning it was still cold enough to keep the island’s notorious biting gnats at bay. If they’d been out I’d have spent more time swatting no-see-ums than I would have taking photos.<\/p>\n

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I wasn’t very quick on the trigger when he began the display so he’s already some distance above his sagebrush perch.<\/p>\n

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Still gaining altitude.<\/p>\n

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He’s nearly reached the apex of his vertical flight.<\/p>\n

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His descent was a combination of parachuting down and…<\/p>\n

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diving down.<\/p>\n

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More parachuting.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Nearly there.<\/p>\n

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Touchdown. Notice that he landed on the same place on the sagebrush he took off from. His landing wasn’t a good one so he…<\/p>\n

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went ass over teakettle in the sagebrush but he soon recovered his balance. After a face plant like this one, recovering his dignity was more problematic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yesterday I was lucky enough to get hundreds of sharp shots of this male as he performed 12 different flight displays, often separated from each other by only a few seconds. It really gave my new camera a workout. In this display he wasn’t calling during his performance but in most of them he was.<\/p>\n

The series above is complete but it doesn’t include some of my photos that were my favorite flight postures from other displays so…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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just for the fun of it I’m tacking one of them on at the end of today’s post. This photo was taken while he was flying almost straight up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yesterday my timing was good because I believe these flight displays, which are types of courtship displays, are just about over for the year. In fact, soon after these photos were taken, I may have found an active mockingbird nest where the eggs are already being incubated. I didn’t approach the potential nest bush to confirm my suspicions for fear of disturbing the mockingbirds but the activity I saw suggests that there’s a nest in there.<\/p>\n

After a mockingbird drought on the island for the last several years, this year has been a good one for them. And for this bird photographer who loves to photograph behaviors.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Finally, a goal achieved but it took me almost ten years. (14 photos)<\/p>\n

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