{"id":135632,"date":"2023-05-12T04:55:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T10:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=135632"},"modified":"2023-05-12T06:00:40","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T12:00:40","slug":"song-sparrow-with-grub-for-the-kiddos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/05\/12\/song-sparrow-with-grub-for-the-kiddos\/","title":{"rendered":"Song Sparrow With Grub For The Kiddos"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do they do that?<\/p>\n

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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

Yesterday morning near Great Salt Lake I spent nearly four minutes watching this Song Sparrow as ‘she’ stuffed her bill with insects to feed her babies. Her hunting technique was methodical as she moved from perch to perch, spending time at each one as she searched for more victims. And she was finding them too. Usually she was picking them off of the small branches where they were resting.<\/p>\n

I simply cannot figure out how birds manage to gather more insects when their bill is already full with them, without dropping the bugs they already have in their bill or letting some of them escape. Lots of birds do it with their preferred prey, puffins with fish, sapsuckers with ants and meadowlarks with worms come to mind, but many others do it too. But how<\/em> they do it is a mystery to me.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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As far as I can tell, every last one of her victims was a midge. No prey diversification here. The inside of my pickup was buzzing with both midges and mosquitoes (to the point that I had to douse myself with spray for the skeeters, midges don’t bite or sting) but she either preferred midges, or mosquitoes weren’t landing on the branches where she had easy access to them.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

In case you’re wondering, the left side of her bill was nearly as full of midges as her right side. I never once saw her drop any of them and I was watching for it too.<\/p>\n

Dang, I’m glad to see a resurgence of midges near the lake after several years mostly without them because of the drought and disappearing lake. I hope it isn’t just temporary.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

How do they do that? (3 photos)<\/p>\n

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