\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nBut in this last image I think it becomes obvious that\u00a0the\u00a0\u00a0intent was to bite the retreating duck.<\/p>\n
Bird behaviors fascinate me.\u00a0 They’re often both interesting and entertaining but many of them happen so fast\u00a0that you miss the details from simple observation.\u00a0 That’s why I so enjoy being able to occasionally capture them with my camera.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most Northern Shovelers breed far north of my area (northern Utah) so I rarely get to see their intensely agonistic breeding behaviors but I’ve seen and photographed some of it in mid-June at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in sw Montana. Northern Shovelers are the most\u00a0territorial of all dabbling ducks and the sexes remain paired longer than any other species.\u00a0 Both of these factors contribute to their aggressive natures. These three sequential shots don’t have great image quality but I do think they illustrate some interesting behavior. \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc I’d been photographing Short-eared Owls from my pickup but was aware of some activity from shovelers in the marshy grasses nearby.\u00a0 A commotion got my attention just in time to see the male on the right fly in to\u00a0attack another male on the water.\u00a0 The second bird saw the attack coming and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and rose from the water in a hasty retreat.\u00a0 I like the non-plussed look of the retreating bird. \u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc \u00a0In this second image of the series it’s not clear if the open bill of the\u00a0incoming bird\u00a0is due to aggressive vocalization or an attempt to bite the other male. \u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc But in this last image I think it becomes obvious that\u00a0the\u00a0\u00a0intent was to bite the retreating duck. Bird behaviors fascinate me.\u00a0 They’re often both interesting and entertaining but many of…<\/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":[4,334,394,1271,360],"tags":[1274,415,1272,50,1273,584,263,303],"class_list":["post-12698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-behaviors","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-northern-shovelers","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","tag-aggressive","tag-agonistic-behavior","tag-anas-clypeata","tag-behavior","tag-breed","tag-northern-shoveler","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-territory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3iO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12698","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=12698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"northern](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/northern-shoveler-8517-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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