![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/yellow-warbler-nest-3695-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"yellow-warbler-nest-3695-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nAnd the nest was active.<\/p>\n
I’ve been photographing birds (or attempting to) from the same spot near a creek for several years with varying success but yesterday morning I had an unexpected opportunity with a subject completely new to me – a Yellow Warbler nest.<\/p>\n
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When a female Yellow Warbler flew into this hawthorn bush it soon became apparent that she had a nest in there. The first time she flew in I was having trouble with one of the “quirks” of the mirrorless Canon R5 that I’ve alluded to in the past so I was unable to photograph her on or near the nest. Yes, I was cussing a blue streak.<\/p>\n
This photo was taken after she left.<\/p>\n
The nest itself looked different to me than my mind’s eye anticipated from a warbler’s nest. The construction materials, whatever they are, are more consistently the same than I expected them to be and they’re very lightly colored – almost white. I’m still trying to figure out precisely what they are. Maybe old, sun-bleached grass blades?<\/p>\n
Cornell’s Birds of the World says that Yellow Warbler nests typically have three layers – a base, a\u00a0 frame and a liner. In one location the base consisted mostly of nettles and the frame consisted mostly of grass fibers. What we’re seeing here could be the frame or the liner – my guess is the frame. Cornell goes on to say this about the liners of Yellow Warbler nests analyzed in that same area:<\/p>\n
“liner composed mainly of deer hair, feathers, and fibers of airborne seeds (mostly cottonwood, dandelion, willow, and cattail.) All listed materials found in all layers but proportions differ.”<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The next time she came back I’d conquered the R5’s quirk (temporarily at least) so I was able to get quite a few photos of her at the nest but the bright sun made the scene contrasty and full of shadows so I won’t include any more of those shots.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thankfully, on her next visit to the nest, the sun was behind what I sometimes refer to as a “cloud from hell” so the annoying shadows mostly disappeared and the light became more appropriate for the situation. I prefer my photos of her in the shade over those taken in bright sunlight.<\/p>\n I suspect she brought nesting material in on these visits (“nests are built by females in about 4 days”) but if she did I never noticed any in her bill, probably because she usually entered the nest from the back of the bush.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n While on the nest she spent much of her time forming the nest cup, or what would become the nest cup, with her body.<\/p>\n Here she also appears to be checking out one of the twigs to see if it would be a comfortable and convenient place to rest her bill while she’s incubating but I doubt that’s really what she was doing. It’s probably just where her bill and ‘chin’ ended up temporarily while she was working on forming the nest shape.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n She squirmed and wriggled her cute little butt on the nest as she worked to make it comfortable for her. While in this position she lowered her head and used her bill to pull some of the nesting material toward her body but I’m not including those shots because my active focus point kept locking on to that twig in front of her bill so her face was never very sharp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At times while she was wriggling on the nest her wings would flutter up which I thought made for some interesting behavioral poses. In this low light I was pleasantly surprised that I had enough shutter speed (1\/1250 for this shot) to get her wings reasonably sharp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In all these years of photographing Yellow Warblers I’d never photographed or even seen one of their nests until yesterday. Earlier that same morning at another location I knew exactly where another Yellow Warbler nest was but I couldn’t quite see it because at my precise shooting angle there were twigs and leaves between me and the nest.<\/p>\n Stuff like that happens when you’re not willing to risk moving your location or doing anything else that might disturb a nesting bird.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Notes:<\/p>\n I was shooting from inside my pickup, I never approached the nest and the warbler was definitely not disturbed. These photos are very large crops (17% of the original image or slightly smaller) that were taken with a super telephoto lens plus teleconverter.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Image techs for these photos were 1\/1250 – 1\/5000, f\/5,6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n I’m still hoping to publish a post on the “quirks” of the mirrorless Canon R5 sometime fairly soon but that post will be long and complex and with everything going on in my life at the moment I can’t promise when it will happen.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And the nest was active. (6 photos)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/yellow-warbler-3852-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"yellow-warbler-3852-ron-dudley\\"")
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