snagging two different midges out of the air<\/a><\/span><\/span> at Bear River MBR. Last night, while I was half-heartedly attempting to cull that day’s images, I discovered more photos of the same blackbird doing the same thing. Each time the midge flew right up to the face of the bird, almost as if it was volunteering to sacrifice its life for the greater ecological good, so I think of them as benign “kamikaze midges”.<\/p>\nI thought my readers might enjoy seeing those photos.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/red-winged-blackbird-2486-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-winged-blackbird-2486-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
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>\nThis is midge #3 that within just a few seconds almost begged to be eaten. And each time the blackbird obliged. Or wanted to.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/red-winged-blackbird-2486-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-winged-blackbird-2486-big-crop-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Here’s a closer look at the action. I was tickled to get both the bird and the midge as sharp as I did. Midges are tiny (mosquito-sized) and flitty so I don’t get them this sharp in flight all that often.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/red-winged-blackbird-2489-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-winged-blackbird-2489-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
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>\nBefore she could even swallow that one, midge #4 presented itself – almost daring her to take a stab at it. But midge #4 lived to see another day because…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/red-winged-blackbird-2489-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-winged-blackbird-2489-big-crop-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
her mouth was already full. But there’s no question that she knew it was there. Her eyes seemed locked right on it so it must have been frustrating for her.<\/p>\n
I’m sure glad to have the midges back, mostly for the birds but for us crazy bird photographers too.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Midges with a death wish. (4 photos)<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135306,"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":[338,334,8,392,390],"tags":[49,6879,6878,6880,311],"class_list":["post-135304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-red-winged-blackbirds","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-eaing-midges","tag-female-red-winged-blackbird","tag-kamikaze-midges","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/red-winged-blackbird-2486-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-zck","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135304","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=135304"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135350,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135304\/revisions\/135350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}