{"id":37976,"date":"2016-03-10T06:01:39","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T13:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=37976"},"modified":"2016-03-10T06:01:39","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T13:01:39","slug":"magpie-in-flight-with-nesting-material-and-the-frustrations-of-nest-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/10\/magpie-in-flight-with-nesting-material-and-the-frustrations-of-nest-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Magpie In Flight With Nesting Material (and the frustrations of nest building)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finding\u00a0nesting material and carrying it to the nest\u00a0is only\u00a0the beginning\u00a0of the battle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Two days ago I photographed this Black-billed Magpie as it carried a twig to its nest on Antelope Island. This time instead of following the bird in with my lens I prefocused on the\u00a0left side of the nest and waited\u00a0for the bird to appear in my viewfinder. As a result the\u00a0nest is slightly sharper than the bird because\u00a0the magpie isn’t in quite the same plane. The image is full frame (uncropped).<\/p>\n

Magpie nests are dome-shaped structures with a nest chamber in the interior and they’re made out of a jumble of sticks and twigs that can make landing on them a tricky maneuver. One threat is eye damage from all the pointed sticks so immediately after touchdown (they do need to see where they’re landing) they often have their nictitating membranes closed to protect their eyes. I delete a lot of otherwise nice images because of that prominently closed membrane.<\/p>\n

Magpies line the interior chamber of their nest with mud which explains the mud on the base of\u00a0this bird’s bill.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The magpie approached the nest a little slower than usual because its intended landing spot…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

was between the long horizontal twig in front of its left wing…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

and\u00a0an extremely spikey live branch (the one above its head) coming out of the bush that supports the nest. When it first landed here its right wing was entangled in the\u00a0twig it was carrying – here it had just lifted that wing away from the twig. This image, with the long horizontal twig at bottom (going out of frame at left) and the spikey branch of the supporting bush above its head, shows just how challenging this landing spot was. Throw in the long, awkward twig the\u00a0magpie was carrying and the room needed for flapping wings and one has to be impressed with the landing maneuver.<\/p>\n

Now the really hard part starts – a choice must be made about where to place the twig so that it supports the structure and\u00a0shape of the nest. These birds are really picky about that choice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At first the magpie tried to place the twig at the base of the supporting branch of the bush but after wiggling and jiggling it into place for a while it changed its mind and…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

carried the twig to the opposite side of the domed nest for possible\u00a0placement there. But the far side of the twig became entangled in other twigs on the nest and this bird…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

really struggled to\u00a0place the twig in its intended spot. In order to get the far end of the twig out of its entanglement it had to raise it vertically but even this wasn’t far enough so…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

it raised the twig past vertical and assumed this comical posture as it did so.<\/p>\n

But in the end all this effort was for naught because the awkward twig just wouldn’t go where the magpie wanted it to so the bird eventually placed the twig on the far side of the nest where I didn’t have a very\u00a0clear view of the proceedings.<\/p>\n

The industriousness and skill of birds building nests impresses me enough that I could watch if for hours. And sometimes I do.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: I’m always extremely careful that I’m not disturbing birds near a nest. I always shoot from my pickup on a road and since I’m shooting at an effective 1120mm I’m never close to the nest. These birds have not yet laid eggs. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Finding nesting material and carrying it to the nest is only the beginning of the battle.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37977,"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":[3,334,363,391],"tags":[31,57,228,1307,515,610],"class_list":["post-37976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-black-billed-magpies","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-nest","tag-nest-building","tag-nictitating-membrane","tag-pica-hudsonia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/black-billed-magpie-9927-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9Sw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37976","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=37976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}