{"id":113282,"date":"2022-06-29T05:21:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T11:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=113282"},"modified":"2022-06-29T05:51:01","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T11:51:01","slug":"male-mountain-bluebird-attacking-his-own-reflection-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/29\/male-mountain-bluebird-attacking-his-own-reflection-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Mountain Bluebird Attacking His Own Reflection, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rest of the story. I know, I’ve been telling a lot of “rest of the stories” lately.<\/p>\n

Two days ago I posted a single photo of an adult male Mountain Bluebird as he was attacking his own reflection in one of the outside mirrors of my pickup. At that time I said that I’d be posting more photos documenting his highly aggressive behavior when I had time to get the images processed. I’m presenting those photos today.<\/p>\n

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Five days ago in the mountains, as I approached this small car parked in a wide spot along the side of the road, I noticed a male bluebird buzzing around its outside mirror on the passenger side. I figured he was attacking his reflection in the mirror so I tried to maneuver into position so I could take documentary photos. But that side of the car was in deep shade, with bright light in the background, so conditions for photography were atrocious. All I could do was try.<\/p>\n

The side of the car was slippery and steep so where he’s perched here was the only spot where he could hold on and see himself in the mirror. From here he repeatedly launched…<\/p>\n

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full blown attacks on his own reflection, which of course he thought was another rival bluebird.<\/p>\n

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They weren’t bluff attacks. I could hear the clicking sounds produced when his beak and claws…<\/p>\n

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impacted the mirror.<\/p>\n

I took lots of photos of him before eventually driving down the road to look for other birds.<\/p>\n

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Much later in the morning, when I came back to the same spot, the little car was gone but it took him no time at all to find my own passenger side mirror and his reflection in it.<\/p>\n

I rolled my window down to give him a more secure place to perch and he was absolutely fearless, with me only about 4′ away in the driver’s seat (this is a cell phone photo). He alternately landed on my window ledge, on top of my mirror and even on my antenna but he spent most of his time perched here before repeatedly attacking his imaginary rival in the mirror.<\/p>\n

At this point I tried to take a video of him attacking my mirror with my cell phone. And I thought I did but when I got home there was no video on my phone. Apparently, when I pushed the video button it didn’t “take”. Dammit!<\/p>\n

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And I couldn’t get decent photos of him with my smaller zoom lens while sitting in the driver’s seat because I was too close and the contrasty light was simply awful so I…<\/p>\n

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got out of my pickup, walked behind and around it, and took photos from there. While perched on my window ledge he could only see himself in my smaller curved mirror at bottom.<\/p>\n

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This is probably about what he was seeing from my window ledge.<\/p>\n

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He repeatedly perched on top of the mirror, on top of the upper mirror support and on top of my antenna.<\/p>\n

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But it was his reflection in the larger upper mirror that really pissed him off.<\/p>\n

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I have a lot of photos like this one but I won’t bore my readers with any more of them.<\/p>\n

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When I walked back around the rear of my pickup to get inside he even challenged me<\/em>, on the ground right in front of me, so at this point I decided it was time to leave the area, taking my mirrors with me of course, because I didn’t want to be responsible for him wasting any more energy. Especially during nesting season. But I don’t think me leaving made much difference. Cars are parked here often during the day and I suspect he attacked the mirrors of most of them, probably for several days in a row.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you’re curious about the origins of this highly aggressive behavior, bird authority Dan Gleason made the following comment about it on my post two days ago.<\/p>\n

“This behavior is aggressive and not at all like feeding or begging behaviors. This is seen almost exclusively in adult males and only when defending a territory. Usually this only occurs before a mate is obtained or at least before a female has completed her nest and is sitting on eggs. By the time the young have fledged but may still be seeking food from parents, this behavior will have stopped. It is hormonally driven and as nesting season progresses, the testosterone driving this behavior declines and the aggression also declines. Along with this, other hormones increase that initiate brooding in females and males of some species. Males still sing but territories are well established and strong territorial aggression is not as necessary. Boundaries are usually well-respected by other neighbors of the same species.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you, Dan. We always appreciate your knowledgeable input.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

The rest of the story. I know, I’ve been telling a lot of “rest of the stories” lately.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113286,"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":[5,334,394,395,1504,391],"tags":[4747,6411,415,6410,4780,741,6412,2986,2726,311],"class_list":["post-113282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-miscellaneous","category-mountain-bluebirds","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-adult-male","tag-aggressiveness","tag-agonistic-behavior","tag-attacking-reflection-in-mirror","tag-dan-gleason","tag-mountain-bluebird","tag-sex-hormones","tag-sialia-currucoides","tag-testosterone","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/mountain-bluebird-0129-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-tt8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113282","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=113282"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113341,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113282\/revisions\/113341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}