{"id":39452,"date":"2016-05-14T06:32:23","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T12:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=39452"},"modified":"2016-05-14T07:27:07","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T13:27:07","slug":"a-quirky-meadowlark-behavior-i-have-a-working-hypothesis-to-explain-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/14\/a-quirky-meadowlark-behavior-i-have-a-working-hypothesis-to-explain-it\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quirky Meadowlark Behavior (I have a working hypothesis to explain it)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often\u00a0see physical details in my photos that I hadn’t noticed in the field but this time it was a behavior.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/5000, 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\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I found this unusually cooperative Western Meadowlark yesterday morning on Antelope Island. I spent nine minutes with it as it posed for me with wing-lifts, wing and tail stretches and tail-flicks. During one stretching session the bird performed a maneuver that I had never seen before – from any species.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here the wing and tail stretch is just beginning. Notice the placement of the right foot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the wing came down the bird lifted that foot off the perch…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

and hooked one of its claws over the leading edges of two of its wing primaries.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

A huge crop of the previous image gives us a more detailed look.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then the meadowlark began to slide that hooked claw…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

down the entire\u00a0length of the\u00a0wing feathers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The wing primaries are asymmetrical so when the\u00a0claw reached the\u00a0curved edge of the inner feather…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

the claw was only long enough to reach across a single feather.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the claw continued to move down that feather…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

until it could reach across two feather edges again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the claw reached the end of the feathers…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

the bird dropped its foot and then immediately placed it back on the perch. It didn’t stretch that leg.<\/p>\n

I was intrigued by this behavior when I first noticed it while reviewing my images at home. I believe that it was done deliberately instead of the claw just accidentally being hooked on the feathers as the foot moved down. But if it was a purposeful behavior, as I believe it was, it begs the question of why? What purpose could it serve? I have a working theory.<\/p>\n

Microscopically, contour feathers consist of barbs, barbules and hooks. The barbules overlap with each other in a herringbone pattern and are held together with great tenacity by their tiny hooks (similar to the way Velcro works). But those hooks are often pulled apart by the forces of everyday activities of the bird, leaving gaps in the vanes of the feathers. Birds then close those gaps while they’re preening by grasping the base of the feather and pulling the length of it through their bill, thus “re-zipping” the Velcro-like hooks. Many of us have done the same thing with a feather by running it lengthwise through our fingers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rough-legged-hawk-6691And that’s exactly what this Rough-legged Hawk is doing while preening – re-zipping the hooks. We can see how ragged the tail feather edges are because many of the barbules have become separated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It’s my\u00a0working hypothesis\u00a0that the meadowlark may have been re-zipping the tiny hooks on the leading edge of the primaries by moving its claw down their length. It’s particularly important that the leading edge of the wing be as crisp as possible as it moves through the air and it seems logical to me that this behavior could accomplish that task as well as traditional preening.<\/p>\n

It’s only a theory and I may be way off base so\u00a0I thought I’d throw it out there for “peer review…”. Alternative theories are\u00a0encouraged.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

During one stretching session this bird performed a maneuver that I had never seen before \u2013 from any species.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39463,"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":[3,334,395,358,370],"tags":[31,2777,2965,2737,2964,269,669,323],"class_list":["post-39452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-rough-legged-hawks","category-western-meadowlarks","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-barbs","tag-barbules-and-hooks","tag-claw","tag-function-of-preening","tag-rough-legged-hawk","tag-sturnella-neglecta","tag-western-meadowlark"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/western-meadowlark-9962-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-agk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39452","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=39452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}