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<\/a><\/p>\nThe male continually stroked (and attempted to stroke)\u00a0the back of the female with his long bill, usually from more anterior to posterior toward the tail.\u00a0 At the time I estimated that he did this about 200 times in the few minutes I watched the behavior.\u00a0 Sometimes the female cooperated and sometimes she didn’t.\u00a0 Here she is running away from him but he was very quick and persistent, even on the run.<\/p>\n
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At least twice during that time he lifted one of her short tail feathers with the tip of his bill.\u00a0 Both times it happened so quickly that I didn’t even see it happen in the field and only noticed it when I looked at the images on my screen at home.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This was the second time he lifted her tail feather.\u00a0 It may have happened more often than that and I just didn’t catch it in my photos.<\/p>\n I’ve read detailed descriptions of courtship behavior in curlews and this feather lifting wasn’t mentioned\u00a0in those accounts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Last year (on 4\/2\/12 and in almost exactly the same place as the first three images in this post were taken) I photographed similar curlew courtship\u00a0behaviors in a different pair of birds.\u00a0 The rest of these photos are from that encounter.<\/p>\n The male would raise his wings and circle the female in an attempt to get into position to stroke\u00a0the back and tail of the female\u00a0with his bill.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For a while she was cooperative and allowed him to do so by standing still.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But then she apparently tired of his attempts at foreplay and turned on him aggressively.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This “en garde” pose by the male is a defensive posture in response to her aggression.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But then she changed her mind and became more cooperative again by standing still and raising her tail as he caressed her.\u00a0 Notice that once again the male has raised some of the feathers near her tail.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But once again the (I won’t use the word “fickle”) female turned on him and this time she was adamant that she’d had enough of this silliness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n She attacked him with vigor…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n so aggressively that she lost her footing in the loose soil as the male made his escape…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n