{"id":20363,"date":"2013-12-02T06:15:53","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T13:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=20363"},"modified":"2013-12-02T08:03:40","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T15:03:40","slug":"fledgling-yellow-headed-blackbird-begging-for-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/02\/fledgling-yellow-headed-blackbird-begging-for-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Fledgling Yellow-headed Blackbird Begging For Food"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young Yellow-headed Blackbirds leave the nest long before they can fly,\u00a0at the very early age of 9 – 12 days.\u00a0\u00a0From then until they can fly they spend their time hiding in the dead vegetation near the surface of the water and begging incessantly for food.<\/p>\n

These blackbirds\u00a0feed almost exclusively on seeds for most of the year but during the breeding season they become strict carnivores and consume vast numbers of insects, particularly emergent aquatic species.\u00a0 In Utah,\u00a0 midges, damselflies, grasshoppers and beetles are the primary insect types delivered to the young birds\u00a0by the parents.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"yellow-headed<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/250, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This youngster had the begging routine down to a science.\u00a0 It spent its time buried in the cattails until it spotted a parent nearby, when\u00a0it would come out and beg with very enthusiastic calls and postures.\u00a0 As you can see it has an insect leg stuck to its bill from a previous meal.\u00a0 Once the young birds learn to fly they pursue the parents as they beg for food which can produce a scene of real pandemonium in an area with multiple nests.<\/p>\n

Here’s a link<\/strong> <\/em><\/a>to a sound file of the begging calls of juvenile Yellow-headed Blackbirds if you’re interested.<\/p>\n

The marsh where I photographed this bird has been a prolific breeding ground for Yellow-headed Blackbirds for many years but last year they apparently abandoned the area for breeding.\u00a0 I don’t know why.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 My primary computer is now in the shop for a few days and for a variety of reasons publishing posts\u00a0is a real struggle with my back-up\u00a0machines.\u00a0 All I can do is take each day one at a time.<\/em><\/p>\n

Note #2.\u00a0 I just noticed that comments from several of you who are regulars here and whose comments should have been pre-approved have been going to my spam folder for some reason.\u00a0 Hopefully I have remedied that situation but if it ever happens again please let me know through “contact me” at the top of the page.\u00a0 I apologize to\u00a0those\u00a0it happened to.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Young Yellow-headed Blackbirds leave the nest long before they can fly, at the very early age of 9 – 12 days. From then until they can fly they spend their time hiding in the dead vegetation near the surface of the water and begging incessantly for food.<\/p>\n

This youngster had the begging routine down to a science. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20364,"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":[334,392,391,897],"tags":[1555,136,145,899,898],"class_list":["post-20363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-nesting-and-mating","category-yellow-headed-blackbirds","tag-begging","tag-feeding","tag-fledgling","tag-xanthocephalus-xanthocephalus","tag-yellow-headed-blackbird"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/yellow-headed-blackbird-3334-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5ir","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20363","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=20363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}