{"id":135516,"date":"2023-05-10T06:02:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T12:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=135516"},"modified":"2023-05-10T08:15:13","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T14:15:13","slug":"my-attempt-at-photographing-multiple-4-northern-mockingbird-vertical-flight-displays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/05\/10\/my-attempt-at-photographing-multiple-4-northern-mockingbird-vertical-flight-displays\/","title":{"rendered":"My Attempt At Photographing Multiple (4) Northern Mockingbird Vertical Flight Displays"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Vertical Flight Display is a courtship display of the male Northern Mockingbird. According to Cornell’s Birds of the World the display is:<\/p>\n

\u00a0“given from a high singing perch. A singing male jumps upward, flaps his wings once or several times, ascends a meter or two above the perch, and then parachutes down, wings open, onto the same or a nearby perch. White wing patches are conspicuous during the display, and the bird sings continuously”<\/em><\/p>\n

A couple of days ago I found a male Northern Mockingbird using one of the pavilions on Antelope Island as his “high singing perch” while he repeatedly performed Vertical Flight Displays. Four times I attempted to document his displays photographically, with varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n

My results are below. A couple of these photos aren’t very sharp but they’re plenty sharp enough for documentation purposes.<\/p>\n

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Display #1:<\/p>\n

At first I had no idea that he was displaying. I just thought he was singing atop the pavilion so I wasn’t expecting or prepared for his performance. As a result, in this first display I only got…<\/p>\n

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one photo of him during the entire display – this shot taken soon after takeoff from the poop-covered pavilion.<\/p>\n

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Display #2:<\/p>\n

This second time I did a little better, but not much. This time I kept him in frame for…<\/p>\n

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two photos during his performance. Notice that, as described by Cornell, he was usually singing while displaying (most evident in the previous photo).<\/p>\n

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Display #3:<\/p>\n

I had my best luck with this third display.<\/p>\n

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By now I’d figured out which angle to follow him with my lens that would give me the best chance to keep him in frame for longer.<\/p>\n

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Still ascending at a steep angle as he was calling.<\/p>\n

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This is the last shot I got of him as he was going up. After this he rolled over and…<\/p>\n

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then I managed to get him in frame again as he…<\/p>\n

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parachuted back down to…<\/p>\n

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his original pavilion perch. But this time, as usual, I lost focus on him before the pavilion came into the frame and he landed on it.<\/p>\n

At this point he did something different. He flew to another singing perch behind me, one that I couldn’t see. But I could hear him singing back there so now I had a new goal. I figured that he’d eventually return to the first pavillion and perform from there again so if that happened I hoped to capture him landing on it.<\/p>\n

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And I got lucky. Here he’s landing after a horizontal flight to the pavilion rather than after a Vertical Flight Display, which explains why he’s coming in from the side instead of from above.<\/p>\n

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Display #4:<\/p>\n

I only caught him landing after a display a single time and this is it. This is the photo I posted yesterday. I did a poor job on this last display because I missed his vertical takeoff and never got him in frame and in focus again until just prior to landing.<\/p>\n

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Immediately after landing he seemed to celebrate his performance by raising his wings and singing with all the enthusiasm he could muster.<\/p>\n

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Some observations about his performance and mine:<\/p>\n