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<\/p>\nThe nesting season of Mountain Bluebirds\u00a0in Montana’s Centennial Valley was delayed this year due to a late spring cold snap so\u00a0during my visit there last week some of them were still feeding youngsters in the nest boxes.\u00a0 I’ve found it to be relatively easy to photograph the parent birds on top of the nest boxes with insects\u00a0for the chicks in their beaks but catching them in flight as they leave the nest with fecal sacs is another story altogether.<\/p>\n
They literally explode out of the box so timing is critical.\u00a0 The other issue is that they don’t remove fecal sacs very often compared to the number of trips made with food.\u00a0 Studies indicate that on average intact Mountain Bluebird pairs with complete broods remove\u00a0only 1.8 fecal sacs per hour.\u00a0\u00a0In in the same amount of time there will be 12.4 food deliveries to the nest so about 7 food trips are needed to produce a single fecal sac.<\/p>\n
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1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n On this trip to Montana I was only able to get one acceptable image of a parent in flight as it flew off with a sac.\u00a0 These sacs are actually eaten early in the nesting period but later on they are carried away from the nest and usually deposited on perches such as tree branches or fence posts.\u00a0 Between rains piles of the sacs can be found at those habitual perches.<\/p>\n This image isn’t quite tack sharp but I thought the behavior was interesting enough to post it anyway.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The nesting season of Mountain Bluebirds in Montana’s Centennial Valley was delayed this year due to a late spring cold snap so during my visit there last week some of them were still feeding youngsters in the nest boxes. I’ve found it to be relatively easy to photograph the parent birds on top of the nest boxes with insects for the chicks in their beaks but catching them in flight as they leave the nest with fecal sacs is another story altogether.<\/p>\n