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<\/p>\nTwo days ago on a heavily overcast morning I spent some time with an obviously mated pair of American Avocets at Bear River MBR. At first they were both foraging for food in a flooded area that had been burned last fall for phragmites control. Initially I had no idea that their nest was nearby.<\/p>\n
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But it was. After a while the male walked away from the water and began to meticulously inspect their nest with his bill. It may not look like much of a nest but that’s what it is.<\/p>\n
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Soon his smaller mate joined him at their nest.<\/p>\n
While building their nest both sexes collect lining material from near the nest and toss it over their backs toward the nest. For a few seconds both of these birds were doing exactly that but they always had their backs to me and they did it half-heartedly, so I had the definite impression that that portion of their nest-building routine was essentially complete.<\/p>\n
Eventually both birds walked back to the water and began foraging again. At one point one of them took off and…<\/p>\n
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circled around, only to come right back and join its mate again. I find avocets to be a difficult subject to photograph well in flight so I was happy to get this shot, even though the bird is fairly small in the frame.<\/p>\n
At that point the avocets weren’t doing anything but feeding so I drove on to look for other birds. Because of the mostly poor light it was my intention to head for home when I reached the end of the auto tour loop.<\/p>\n
But when I got there I could see that the clouds were clearing so I decided to drive the loop again. Part of my motivation was to check on the avocets one more time. Perhaps they’d be doing something interesting related to nesting activities.<\/p>\n
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But when I got there they were both still foraging for food. In the beginning this was the only interesting shot I got, taken as the avocet performed a one-footed wing stretch.<\/p>\n
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But soon the male (I believe) walked over to the nest again and this time he sat down in the nest as if he were incubating. And maybe he was because in this species both sexes incubate. He stayed in the nest for a long time so eventually I left the avocets and drove on down the road.<\/p>\n
If there were any eggs in the nest I probably wouldn’t have been able to see them at the angle I was forced to shoot from. Avocet clutch size is usually four eggs and it typically takes the female five days to lay all four so I have no idea what stage the avocets may be in in the egg-laying process.<\/p>\n
But if their nest isn’t flooded during spring runoff (a definite possibility), I have hopes of photographing puffball baby avocets in a few weeks.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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Note: A half hour after I published today’s post, WordPress still hasn’t sent out the email containing a link to the post to subscribers. Apparently there’s a glitch in the system. C’mon WordPress, wake up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n