{"id":38295,"date":"2016-03-23T06:28:10","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T12:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=38295"},"modified":"2016-03-23T06:28:10","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T12:28:10","slug":"american-avocets-an-awkward-mating-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/23\/american-avocets-an-awkward-mating-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"American Avocets – An Awkward Mating Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’ll come as no surprise to many of us that sex isn’t always a bed of roses. That sad fact also applies to birds.<\/p>\n

Occasionally I go back to some of my oldest photos to see what might be lurking there that I’ve\u00a0forgotten about. This behavioral sequence was taken at Farmington Bay WMA\u00a0in late April of 2008 with my older Canon 40D so the file sizes aren’t very big. I’ve also\u00a0cut off\u00a0some wings\u00a0and there’s\u00a0out of focus vegetation in front of the birds but I thought the series was still interesting. And amusing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the breeding ritual and just prior to mating male American Avocets shake their bill in the water with increasing intensity which causes vigorous splashing just before he mounts the female.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Getting (and staying) on her back isn’t easy, especially with those incredibly long legs, so males often brace their bills against the head, neck or bill of the female…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

in order to provide a third balance point. Even so it’s a daunting task to stay up there…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

and sometimes things just don’t work out. This male’s left foot slid down her wet, slippery shoulder and he…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

ended up in the drink and straddling her in a position…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

that prevented completion of the act. Here the male in particular seems a little nonplussed. As a result both birds lost “the mood” so they went back to feeding and other activities.<\/p>\n

But if I remember correctly this pair of love-birds eventually raised chicks so all was not lost. At least not permanently.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

It’ll come as no surprise to many of us that sex isn’t always a bed of roses. That sad fact also applies to birds.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38297,"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":[437,334,2782,391],"tags":[27,1008,1016,471],"class_list":["post-38295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-avocets-shore-birds","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-american-avocet","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-mating","tag-recurvirostra-americana"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/american-avocet-1205-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9XF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38295","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=38295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}