{"id":159631,"date":"2024-06-02T06:12:17","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T12:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=159631"},"modified":"2024-06-02T07:35:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T13:35:16","slug":"yellow-headed-blackbirds-feasting-on-midges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/02\/yellow-headed-blackbirds-feasting-on-midges\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellow-headed Blackbirds Feasting On Midges"},"content":{"rendered":"

As usual this time of year, three days ago at Bear River MBR many of the Yellow-headed Blackbirds were feasting on midges. Typically, they’d snag them right out of the air.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s what this adult male had been doing just before I pulled up on him but just before I got my pickup stopped he yielded to his springtime urges and started ‘singing’ instead. Yes, that raucous, nonmelodic sound they make is actually called singing.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But just a few feet away, several females (notice their overall brownish color, instead of black) were awash in midges – so many of them that the birds sometimes seemed bewildered about which one to go after.<\/p>\n

In this photo and all the rest the background is water, not sky.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The sharp midge just above this female is doomed. A split second later it was lunch. I often tried to time my shots to show the moment a bird clamped down on a midge in flight but on this morning I was never quite successful. It happens so fast, this was as close as I came.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In this photo (that isn’t quite sharp) we can see a midge in her bill just after capture.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I was also trying to get photos of blackbirds taking off and in flight. Once again, this female had been feasting on midges but as I approached her I think I made her a little nervous. She stopped feeding and…<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

took off. I managed to get this shot that I really like as she launched from her perch amidst the midges. I suspect she crashed into the midge directly in front of her.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I actually got another sharp flight shot of her but in this one I didn’t have enough room on the left for a composition I like so I had to add canvas on that side.<\/p>\n

It looks like her crop is packed with midges. Right now is a bounteous time at the refuge.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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As usual this time of year, three days ago at Bear River MBR many of the Yellow-headed Blackbirds were feasting on midges. Typically, they’d snag them right out of the air. (7 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159637,"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":[338,334,392,1421],"tags":[49,136,146,5334,7477,1980,311,899],"class_list":["post-159631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-yellow-headed-blackbirds-blackbirds","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-feeding","tag-flight","tag-full-crop","tag-male-and-female-yellow-headed-blackbirds","tag-midges","tag-utah-2","tag-xanthocephalus-xanthocephalus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/yellow-headed-blackbird-0296-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-FwH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159631","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=159631"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159674,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159631\/revisions\/159674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}