{"id":129661,"date":"2023-02-09T04:49:44","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T11:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=129661"},"modified":"2023-02-09T04:49:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T11:49:44","slug":"red-winged-blackbird-showing-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/09\/red-winged-blackbird-showing-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-winged Blackbird Showing Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago, not long before I became involved with the new developments at Farmington’s Great Blue Heron rookery<\/a><\/span><\/span>, I spent some up-close time with a male Red-winged Blackbird that seemed determined to show off his best side while he was strutting his stuff.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, 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

When I first approached him he had his back to me. But as soon as I got him in my viewfinder he turned broadside to me in the warm morning light, cocked his head slightly my way and held this dandy pose for long enough to allow me quite a few photos.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, 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

Then he started singing in the typical exaggerated display of the species. I took a lot of shots of him displaying, too many really, so eventually I mostly just watched him through my viewfinder.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, 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

After quite a while he turned on his perch to give me this pose – one I’ve always liked because it shows off the reds of their epaulets so well. The problem with this mostly head-on shooting angle of a pitch-black bird is getting a good exposure on the blacks, details in the face and bill and a catch light in the eye. This is about the best I’ve done.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, 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

Then he turned back pretty close to his original posture and gave me some more singing photos. This time I liked his slight head turn better and I think being able to see through the ends of his wing primaries makes the photo more interesting.<\/p>\n

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That morning there was a fascinating vocal battle going on between two species of black birds, one that I wish I’d thought to take photos of. Hundreds of male Red-winged Blackbirds and an almost equal number of American Crows were massed together in a line of trees near the north end of the refuge. The two species seemed to be competing with each other to see which one could make the most noise. It was a delight to watch. And to listen to.<\/p>\n

Besides lamenting the fact that I didn’t take any photos, I wish I’d thought to shoot some video – with sound of course.<\/p>\n

Next time.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Notes on the epaulets of Red-winged Blackbirds:<\/em><\/p>\n

Male Red-winged Blackbirds, especially in breeding plumage, are well known for having flashy red epaulets on their wings. But they’re less well known for the yellow that borders the red on the wrist (bend) of the wing. That yellow can be seen in three of these photos.<\/em><\/p>\n

Interestingly, males in some California and Mexico populations completely lack the yellow border.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Two days ago, not long before I became involved with the new developments at Farmington’s Great Blue Heron rookery, I spent some up-close time with a male Red-winged Blackbird that seemed determined to show off his best side while he was strutting his stuff.\u00a0 (4 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129665,"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":[334,2782,395,390],"tags":[1936,6720,1839,4429,1008,264,284,311,6721],"class_list":["post-129661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-miscellaneous","category-red-winged-blackbirds","tag-agelaius-phoeniceus","tag-crow-and-blackbird-vocal-battle","tag-displaying","tag-epaulets","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-red-winged-blackbird","tag-singing","tag-utah-2","tag-what-colors-are-in-their-epaulets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/red-winged-blackbird-8794-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-xJj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129661","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=129661"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129704,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129661\/revisions\/129704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}