{"id":12466,"date":"2013-02-16T07:30:30","date_gmt":"2013-02-16T14:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=12466"},"modified":"2013-02-16T11:04:43","modified_gmt":"2013-02-16T18:04:43","slug":"coots-dont-like-redheads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/16\/coots-dont-like-redheads\/","title":{"rendered":"Coots Don’t Like Redheads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last spring I witnessed quite the little drama between an American Coot and a mated pair of Redheads.<\/p>\n

I’m going to be a little anthropomorphic here with my\u00a0narrative (and even my title) – sorry, just can’t resist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

The Redheads seemed to be minding their own business but this coot took exception when they came too close to its nest.\u00a0 Here the coot is apparently looking away from the ducks but the\u00a0Redheads seems to know that something’s potentially up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

And it was.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

I’m always amazed at how fast the reactions of birds are.\u00a0\u00a0 The Redhead almost seemed to know the attack was in progress before it actually was.\u00a0\u00a0 You’ll notice that the coot is no closer to him in this second shot than it was in the previous one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Redhead seems to be trying to use some of the reeds to avoid the approaching coot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

The attack continues…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

and continues…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

until both birds\u00a0sense that it’s over and begin to settle back down into the water.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

The male Redhead reacts with what seems like a celebratory wing-flap that it survived the attack without any damage…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"redhead<\/p>\n

and then swims off contentedly with his lady.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

But the coot isn’t taking any chances and lays low in the water while facing the retreating\u00a0ducks with a threat pose.<\/p>\n

I was\u00a0pleased to get this sequence without clipping any birds and keeping multiple subjects sharp in the\u00a0 frame – not easy to do with the 500mm and attached teleconverter.\u00a0 Mostly I just got lucky that the birds stayed pretty much in the same plane.\u00a0\u00a0(Sorry, I don’t have time this morning to\u00a0include my techs).<\/p>\n

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

Last spring I witnessed quite the little drama between an American Coot and a mated pair of Redheads. I’m going to be a little anthropomorphic here with my\u00a0narrative (and even my title) – sorry, just can’t resist.   The Redheads seemed to be minding their own business but this coot took exception when they came too close to its nest.\u00a0 Here the coot is apparently looking away from the ducks but the\u00a0Redheads seems to know that something’s potentially up.     And it was.     I’m always amazed at how fast the reactions of birds are.\u00a0\u00a0 The Redhead almost seemed to know the attack was in progress before it actually was.\u00a0\u00a0 You’ll notice that the coot is no closer to him in this second shot than it was in the previous one.     The\u00a0Redhead seems to be trying to use some of the reeds to avoid the approaching coot.     The attack continues…     and continues…     until both birds\u00a0sense that it’s over and begin to settle back down into the water.       The male Redhead reacts with what seems like a celebratory wing-flap that it survived the attack without any damage…     and then swims off contentedly with his lady.     But the coot isn’t taking any chances and lays low in the water while facing the retreating\u00a0ducks with a threat pose. I was\u00a0pleased to get this sequence without clipping any birds and keeping multiple subjects sharp in the\u00a0 frame – not easy to do…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[1051,334,1243],"tags":[1052,1244,113,116,139,1054,1242],"class_list":["post-12466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-coots","category-birds","category-redhead-waterfowl","tag-american-coot","tag-aythya-americana","tag-duck","tag-eagle-fight","tag-fight","tag-fulica-americana","tag-redhead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3f4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466","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=12466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}