{"id":116715,"date":"2022-08-17T05:41:52","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T11:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=116715"},"modified":"2022-08-17T10:58:42","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T16:58:42","slug":"female-lazuli-bunting-solving-a-challenging-feeding-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/17\/female-lazuli-bunting-solving-a-challenging-feeding-puzzle\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Lazuli Bunting Solving A Challenging Feeding Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to reach seeds on top of a tall grass stem.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Early yesterday morning in the Wasatch Mountains this female Lazuli Bunting gave me fits as she was foraging for food near the bases of several nearby bushes. Each time she stopped in one place for more than a second or two there was at least one tiny twig or grass stem in front of her or annoying shadows were cast across her body.<\/p>\n

At one point she spent nearly five minutes feeding on grass seeds in one spot where she had good light on her but a tall grass stem was right in front of her. I swear, she took great pleasure in frustrating me – deliberately.<\/p>\n

In the nearly ten minutes I spent with her she only screwed up twice. When she landed on this twig she was out in the open and had good light on her but she was mostly turned away from me. Finally, she turned to this angle that gave me light on her face and in her eye for long enough to get three quick shots before she turned away again.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 1000, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The second time was when she found this grass seed head right next to a convenient perch. It was a somewhat cluttered setting but I had a clear look at her and she was determined to get at those seeds above her head, so I also had time on my side.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 1000, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Assessing the situation. How was she going to get at those seeds, most of which were out of reach above her?<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 1000, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

She reached over, grasped the seed head in her bill and…<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 1000, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

bent it over to a position where she could…<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 1000, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

hold it down with her feet. If you look closely you’ll see that one of her toes on each foot is looped over the seed head and holding it in place against the perch. Now her bill was free so she could…<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/5.6, ISO 1000, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

dine at her leisure, which she proceeded to do. Birds pay a price for not having something akin to hands but they seem to find other ways to get the job done.<\/p>\n

I know, all this is no big deal. But I like seeing these everyday behaviors documented.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

How to reach seeds on top of a tall grass stem.\u00a0 (7 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116721,"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":[334,392,569],"tags":[2232,137,6487,571,572,311],"class_list":["post-116715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-lazuli-buntings","tag-feeding-technique","tag-female","tag-grass-seeds","tag-lazuli-bunting","tag-passerina-amoena","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lazuli-bunting-3039-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-umv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116715","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=116715"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116770,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116715\/revisions\/116770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}