{"id":17999,"date":"2013-09-01T04:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=17999"},"modified":"2013-09-01T04:32:54","modified_gmt":"2013-09-01T10:32:54","slug":"avocet-wing-stretch-a-predictor-of-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/01\/avocet-wing-stretch-a-predictor-of-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Avocet Wing-stretch – A Predictor Of Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my experience American Avocets have two primary\u00a0“styles” of stretching.\u00a0\u00a0 When they stretch a single wing they extend it to the side with one leg stretched out behind.\u00a0\u00a0But they also use what’s called the “two wing stretch” and this style is often a precursor of imminent behavior – takeoff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the two-wing stretch they fully extend those graceful wings vertically and\u00a0at the same time they recurve their neck downward with the head and long bill extended horizontally.\u00a0 If they’re standing in deeper water, only their unusually long legs\u00a0prevent\u00a0the immersion of their heads during the process.<\/p>\n

When you see this pose the bird is very likely about to take off.\u00a0 Here’s what BNA has to say about the behavior:\u00a0 “Two-wing stretch often appears to be preflight intention movement;”<\/em><\/p>\n

The following three images illustrate that behavior (which I’ve written about previously on this blog).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0This is a different avocet coming out of a two-wing stretch.\u00a0 The wings are coming down and the head and neck are being lifted back up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The bird folds its wings back into normal position for an instant and looks around, apparently to decide direction of take-off …<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/8, ISO 400, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc (image posted once before)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0and in the very next frame it lifts off.<\/p>\n

The ability to predict behaviors can be of significant value to bird photographers (and to birders).\u00a0 The greater accuracy you have in anticipating time and direction of take-off, the better chance you have of getting acceptable take-off images where no body parts\u00a0have been\u00a0clipped or cut off.<\/p>\n

I just wish this avocet hadn’t taken off away from me…<\/p>\n

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

In my experience American Avocets have two primary “styles” of stretching. When they stretch a single wing they extend it to the side with one leg stretched out behind. But they also use what’s called the “two wing stretch” and this style is often a precursor of imminent behavior – takeoff.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18000,"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":[437,6,334,395],"tags":[27,50,471,297],"class_list":["post-17999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-avocets-shore-birds","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","tag-american-avocet","tag-behavior","tag-recurvirostra-americana","tag-stretch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/american-avocet-4219-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4Gj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17999","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=17999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}