{"id":38659,"date":"2016-04-08T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=38659"},"modified":"2016-04-08T06:10:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T12:10:00","slug":"long-billed-curlew-eating-a-horned-lark-egg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/08\/long-billed-curlew-eating-a-horned-lark-egg\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-billed Curlew Eating A Horned Lark Egg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning this curlew gave me a lesson on what “opportunistic foraging” really means.<\/p>\n

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

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I spent much of the morning photographing Long-billed Curlews on Antelope Island. They would occasionally display to other curlews…<\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

or jump in the air and act just a little bit\u00a0goofy.<\/p>\n

But they spent most of their time foraging for food. On their breeding grounds the diet of this species consists primarily of insects and over the years that’s about all I’ve ever seen them eat when I could identify the food item. But they’re often described as being “opportunistic feeders” and one of these curlews demonstrated that fact for me when it apparently encountered a Horned Lark nest hidden in the grass.<\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was mostly just watching this bird through my lens (it wasn’t very close and it usually had grass in front of it so I wasn’t pressing my shutter button) when it suddenly picked something up from behind the clump of grass in front of it. At the time I didn’t know what it was but I fired off a burst to see if I could identify it later. It turned out to be a small bird’s egg.<\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

It quickly moved the egg up its very long bill in preparation for swallowing.<\/p>\n

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

A very large crop of the previous image confirms that it really is a small,\u00a0lightly speckled egg.<\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

In one shot, not quite as sharp as the others, I caught the egg in midair (the bill is not touching the egg).<\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The egg had to travel a good distance up that long bill but it’s almost there.<\/p>\n

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

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Down the hatch (I enjoy the irony of that phrase in this situation…).<\/p>\n

This behavior surprised me for two reasons:<\/p>\n