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<\/p>\nThe trials and tribulations of a bird. And a bird photographer – this one you won’t believe.<\/p>\n
Every year in late winter, robins (and a few starlings and House Finches) feast on the shriveled up fruits of ornamental crabapples in a park near my home. Yesterday morning they were going at it again.<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n By now many of the crabapples have fallen to the ground so the robins in particular often forage for them there. This robin is standing on the curb with road asphalt behind “him”. I actually think the road is a good background to set off the pretty colors and markings of the robin.<\/p>\n This one had just swallowed one of the tiny crabapples.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I believe this is the same robin, enjoying another crabapple. There are more crabapples beneath his tail.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n There’s some fruit left in the trees but much of it has fallen to the ground. The crabapples left in the trees are the ones that are hardest for the birds to reach.<\/p>\n This robin was foraging for crabapples in one of the trees. But as you can see, there’s no fruit left on the branch he’s perched on so at this point he’s decided to move to the smaller, spindlier branch directly in front of him because that branch still has crabapples on it and near it.<\/p>\n Perhaps he should have realized that there’s a reason those crabapples haven’t already been eaten. That branch was so spindly…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n it couldn’t even come close to supporting the robin’s weight, so it immediately began to bend down so far that…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n it put him in a pose that I’ve never photographed before, in any species. Notice that his right foot is still tangled up in the original perch as the rest of his body, including his left leg, continues to drop down as the new perch bends more and more.<\/p>\n This is actually the only photo in the series that I really like. I’m only including the rest of them to help me tell the story.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Finally, he managed to untangle his right foot and…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n bring it down to where he intended it to be. After this, his new perch bent so far down that I cut off the bottom half of the bird in my photos but I didn’t miss much because there was so much clutter in front of him. However, I’m happy to report that he did manage to pick off some of the crabapples from his new, droopy perch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This humorous robin behavior was welcome comic relief from an unfortunate and very unpleasant incident that had occurred a few minutes earlier.<\/p>\n While I was photographing the robins I noticed (barely) that there was a single car parked in the parking lot sort of in front of me. Even though I assumed the car was empty I positioned my pickup so that the car had no chance of being in the background of my robin photos. After all, who wants that kind of background in bird photographs?<\/p>\n I was so engrossed in photographing the robins I didn’t even notice that the car had moved before it came up right next to me and stopped with our driver’s side windows less than 5′ apart. Both of our windows were down and the nasty little man who was the driver asked me in an aggressive and accusatory tone of voice “What do you think you’re doing?” At that point I didn’t even realize that it was the car that had been in the parking lot. When I concentrate on birds I really<\/em> concentrate.<\/p>\n His unpleasant and very aggressive tone made what I call my “teacher voice” kick in (after 33 years in the classroom it’s in my genes), so I responded by saying “What business is it of yours?” At that point he began hollering at me for photographing him while he was “eating his sandwich” inside his car. I told him that I was photographing robins, not him or his car, but he didn’t believe me. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even know the robins were there.<\/p>\n I was about to offer to show him the robin photos I’d been taking on my camera screen when he gunned his engine and took off behind me in a huff, but not before he hollered at me “You’re a f***ing weirdo”. I responded with something equally intelligent and productive by assuring him that he was an asshole. Of that I have no doubt, even though the thought of it does a disservice to the average perfectly functional and respectable anal sphincter. Obviously, by then my dander was up.<\/p>\n He turned around behind me and continued to gun his engine as he…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n headed for the city street, screaming at me through his open window as he passed by. At that point I decided to oblige his original accusation and take a few photos of his car as he sped by.<\/p>\n I’ll never understand how or why he thought I was photographing him. My lens was always pointed down at robins on the ground or up at robins in the trees and never, not once, at him or his car. I didn’t even know he was in the car.<\/p>\n Based on the stickers in his window he’s a Lyft and Uber driver. I hope he’s more pleasant, and less presumptuous and aggressive, with his customers than he was with me.<\/p>\n And I’ll tell you what. Next time I have to use Lyft or Uber I’ll be much more wary. And more reluctant to use them at all.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trials and tribulations of a bird. And a bird photographer – this one you won’t believe.\u00a0 (8 photos)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/american-robin-8094-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"american-robin-8094-ron-dudley\\"")
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