{"id":23660,"date":"2014-05-04T06:05:18","date_gmt":"2014-05-04T12:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=23660"},"modified":"2014-05-04T07:07:27","modified_gmt":"2014-05-04T13:07:27","slug":"northern-mockingbird-flight-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/04\/northern-mockingbird-flight-display\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Mockingbird Flight Display"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Mockingbirds have three known courtship displays.\u00a0 I was able to photograph one of them, called the “flight display”, three days ago on Antelope Island.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The flight display occurs while the bird is on a high singing perch and this male (based on his behavior) was singing his heart out.\u00a0 Mockingbirds are highly skilled mimics and while I watched this bird it mimicked the calls of at least a half-dozen other species.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the display it repeatedly jumped up a few feet above the perch\u00a0by flapping its wings a couple of times and then parachuted down with its wings open onto the same perch (or occasionally a perch very close).\u00a0 I was disappointed that it always did this facing away from me, perhaps because of the direction of the breeze.\u00a0 The white wing patches\u00a0were conspicuous and the bird sang continuously during the display, even in the air.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Here he is parachuting down to the perch again.\u00a0 Even though he was facing away the shot shows the white wing patches and tail\u00a0retrices well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I probably watched him launch from the bush and parachute back down to it a dozen times or more but getting the shots wasn’t easy.\u00a0 I didn’t notice the female he was apparently courting in the vicinity but she must have been nearby.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\u00a01\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This same bird also performed another display called the “wing flash” where the wings are raised partly to fully open and\u00a0the conspicuous white wing patches are exposed.\u00a0 This display is usually performed on the ground and the function of the behavior isn’t fully understood.<\/p>\n

These birds were once headed for extinction due to the caged-bird trade in the 1700s but their range is now expanding.\u00a0 I know that many of you see mockingbirds every day but they’re not common in much of Utah and I was thrilled to see and photograph these behaviors up close.<\/p>\n

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

Northern Mockingbirds have three known courtship displays. I was able to photograph one of them, called the “flight display”, three days ago on Antelope Island. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23663,"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":[334,391],"tags":[31,2000,1999,702,311,2001],"class_list":["post-23660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-flight-display","tag-mimus-polyglottus","tag-northern-mockingbird","tag-utah-2","tag-wing-flash"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/northern-mockingbird-8299-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-69C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23660","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=23660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}