{"id":23850,"date":"2014-05-13T05:10:47","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T11:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=23850"},"modified":"2014-05-13T05:10:47","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T11:10:47","slug":"western-kingbird-feeding-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/13\/western-kingbird-feeding-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Kingbird Feeding Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning was a Western Kingbird bonanza\u00a0along the Antelope Island causeway.\u00a0 Typically I see this species individually, in pairs or occasionally in small groups but there was a flock of about 50 birds feeding in insects in the rabbitbrush on the south side of the causeway road and they were a blast to photograph as they did so.<\/p>\n

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\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I like this shot of one of them nestled in the\u00a0spring greenery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But most of the time they were very actively hunting insects at the tops of the rabbitbrush.\u00a0 The action was quite frenetic so I often needed fast shutter speeds that weren’t particularly easy to get in the soft, early morning light.\u00a0 This kingbird is taking off for another hunting perch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Typically they would sit at the top of the perch or hover over it\u00a0and scan the rabbitbrush very near them for insect prey.\u00a0 When they spotted something they would often plunge into the foliage to retrieve it.\u00a0 This bird didn’t have to go far…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0to pluck out a snack.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

and then quickly swallow it.\u00a0 There was a moderate breeze blowing that made their unstable perches even more precarious during the feeding action so they often used their wings for stabilization which allowed some interesting poses.\u00a0 I lost critical focus for this shot so the bird isn’t quite as sharp as I’d like (I applied some extra sharpening)\u00a0but I wanted to include it to show the bird “savoring” its snack.<\/p>\n

Antelope Island was disappointingly slow for much of the winter\u00a0and early spring but if yesterday was any indication the tides have changed for the better – it was the best morning for birds we’ve had out there in a very long time!<\/p>\n

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

Yesterday morning was a Western Kingbird bonanza along the Antelope Island causeway.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23852,"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":[3,334,392,675],"tags":[493,136,837,499,677,676],"class_list":["post-23850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-western-kingbirds","tag-antelope-island-causeway","tag-feeding","tag-insects","tag-rabbitbrush","tag-tyrannus-verticalus","tag-western-kingbird"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/western-kingbird-8817-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6cG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850","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=23850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}