{"id":26012,"date":"2014-08-20T05:35:11","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T11:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=26012"},"modified":"2014-08-20T05:35:11","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T11:35:11","slug":"some-williamsons-sapsucker-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/20\/some-williamsons-sapsucker-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Williamson’s Sapsucker Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early July I photographed a mated pair of Williamson’s Sapsuckers in Clark County, Idaho.\u00a0 As usual I was fascinated by their behaviors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"williamson's<\/p>\n

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

This is the male at the nest-tree, a dead and leaning aspen.\u00a0 Like many (though not all) birds, woodpeckers have both sideways monocular vision and forward binocular vision so I often find it difficult to determine what direction they’re actually looking.\u00a0 Is this male looking at me or at something higher up on the tree?\u00a0 Or perhaps something to its left that I’m unaware of?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"williamson's<\/p>\n

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

A different crop of the same image reveals the answer – he’s concentrating on his nest hole directly above him.\u00a0 These birds were busy feeding ants to\u00a0chicks in the nest and they would nearly always land just below the nest for a few moments\u00a0before flying\u00a0a little further up to the actual entrance.\u00a0 Usually\u00a0one parent was in the nest as the other bird approached with a bill full of ants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"williamson's<\/p>\n

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

This is the shot I worked hard to get\u00a0but seldom achieved – the take-off straight up (or steeper since the tree leans\u00a0in the direction of\u00a0the hole) toward the nest.\u00a0 The timing is critical for this incredibly fast action and I can’t tell you how many shots I wasted by firing a burst when I thought the bird might take off and it didn’t.\u00a0 After a while I\u00a0began to suspect that they were just playing with me and delighting in my frustrations…<\/p>\n

But this time it worked and two shots later in the burst…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"williamson's<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0the bird had landed at the hole and folded its wings.\u00a0 The lighting on his face isn’t ideal but I decided to include the shot anyway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"williamson's<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A moment later the female stuck her head out of the nest and then flew off for more ants.\u00a0 Here her bill contains wood chips from the nest.<\/p>\n

When I began this post my intention was\u00a0to include only the third image because I think it’s the best of the bunch but as is often the case the post evolved as I worked on it.\u00a0 I like to tell behavioral\u00a0stories as well as showcase some of my images so in the end I decided to go this route.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 I was also (one time only) able to capture the female as she took off toward the nest-hole from lower down on the tree.\u00a0 If you missed that post and have the interest, here’s the link<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early July I photographed a mated pair of Williamson’s Sapsuckers in Clark County, Idaho. As usual I was fascinated by their behaviors. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26019,"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":[334,391,2089],"tags":[2091,50,2185,2053,137,709,2032,211,2184,228,2039,314,2038],"class_list":["post-26012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","category-williamsons-sapsuckers","tag-ants","tag-behavior","tag-binocular-vision","tag-clark-county","tag-female","tag-food","tag-idaho","tag-male","tag-monocular-vision","tag-nest","tag-sphyrapicus-thyroideus","tag-vision","tag-williamsons-sapsucker"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/williamsons-sapsucker-2038-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6Ly","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26012","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=26012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}