{"id":137762,"date":"2023-06-14T06:03:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T12:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=137762"},"modified":"2023-06-14T06:18:24","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T12:18:24","slug":"female-american-avocet-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/14\/female-american-avocet-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Female American Avocet In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, how do I know this avocet is a female?<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Five days ago at Bear River MBR I watched this female American Avocet foraging near her nest as her mate was incubating their eggs. When she took off, I figured she’d circle around and come back immediately to land near the nest again, which is something that nesting avocets of both sexes often do. So I was ready for her when she came in to land.<\/p>\n

As she approached her intended landing spot near the nest I got about a half dozen shots of her in flight but some of them weren’t quite sharp enough. I chose to post this one because she’s sharp and I like her flight posture. It also clearly shows their typical nesting habitat.<\/p>\n

In case you’re wondering why I’m so confident that this avocet is the female of the pair, it has to do with the shape of her bill.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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This is an older photo of courting avocets taken just prior to mating. In avocets, sexes are similar in plumage but different in size and in bill shape. Males are larger than females but that trait can only be used reliably when a male and female are seen together. In this photo the male is the larger bird in front.<\/p>\n

But there’s a second trait that can be used to sex lone avocets fairly reliably – females have slightly shorter and more strongly recurved bills<\/em> than males.<\/p>\n

In this photo both traits are obvious, confirming that the male is the bird in front. And that the avocet in the first photo is a female because of her strongly recurved bill.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

So, how do I know this avocet is a female? (2 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137763,"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":[437,338,334,391],"tags":[27,49,146,6966,590,471,311],"class_list":["post-137762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-avocets-shore-birds","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-american-avocet","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-flight","tag-how-to-identify-male-and-female-american-avocets","tag-recurved-bill","tag-recurvirostra-americana","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/american-avocet-2906-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-zPY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137762","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=137762"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137804,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137762\/revisions\/137804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}