{"id":22469,"date":"2014-03-03T07:01:22","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T14:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=22469"},"modified":"2014-03-03T07:12:01","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T14:12:01","slug":"it-must-be-spring-magpies-are-beginning-nest-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/03\/it-must-be-spring-magpies-are-beginning-nest-building\/","title":{"rendered":"It Must Be Spring – Magpies Are Beginning Nest-building"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around here Black-billed Magpies are among the first species to begin nest-building activities.\u00a0 It tickles my fancy to see another sign of spring after this miserable winter.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I photographed two pairs of magpies as they began to refurbish old nests.\u00a0 They bring twigs to add to the outside of their large, domed nests and more twigs and mud for the interior chamber.\u00a0 I photographed them as they flew back and forth from greasewood to sagebrush to the ground and to the nest.\u00a0 I stayed in my vehicle, on the road or parking lot, and the birds were not disturbed in the least by my presence as I shot them from a comfortable distance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-billed<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This\u00a0magpie is just landing on one of the greasewoods near the nest with a large twig in its bill.\u00a0 It was a difficult day to get good exposure on these already challenging black and white birds as we had cloud cover early in the morning and by the time the clouds retreated the sun was higher in the sky than I like.\u00a0 There’s not enough room for the “virtual” tail in this composition but you couldn’t see it anyway and I didn’t like the out of focus foreground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-billed<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, canvas added for composition,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0When the light angle is just right you can\u00a0occasionally catch the spectacular iridescence of the species.\u00a0\u00a0 Even though this bird took off slightly away from me I still enjoyed the image.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-billed<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I believe the small item (twig or debris from\u00a0the interior of last years nest)\u00a0in the bill of this bird is something the magpie found undesirable and is removing it from the nest.\u00a0 I could be wrong about that though.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-billed<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, 1.4 tc,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

You just never know when the iridescence is going to appear.\u00a0 When it does it usually only lasts for a split-second so luck always plays a part, though it helps significantly to maneuver into position with the sun directly behind you if possible.<\/p>\n

I’m aware that some folks aren’t magpie fans but I really enjoy their antics, behaviors and the range of their calls.\u00a0 These\u00a0birds will spend several weeks refurbishing their nests before laying eggs and I\u00a0look forward to more time with them, though next time I hope it’s earlier in the morning.<\/p>\n

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

Around here Black-billed Magpies are among the first species to begin nest-building activities. It tickles my fancy to see another sign of spring after this miserable winter.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22471,"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":[334,363,391],"tags":[57,186,228,610,311],"class_list":["post-22469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-black-billed-magpies","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-iridescence","tag-nest","tag-pica-hudsonia","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/black-billed-magpie-4955-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5Qp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22469","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=22469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}