{"id":39699,"date":"2016-05-22T04:52:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-22T10:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=39699"},"modified":"2016-05-22T05:10:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T11:10:56","slug":"lark-sparrow-trying-to-manhandle-nesting-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/22\/lark-sparrow-trying-to-manhandle-nesting-material\/","title":{"rendered":"Lark Sparrow Trying To Manhandle Nesting Material"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often enjoy the little dramas in the lives of birds just as much as I do the bigger ones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/p>\n

1\/2000, 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 photographed this Lark Sparrow twelve days ago on Antelope Island. The sexes of the species are similar but since only females construct nests I presume the bird to be a female. At first she was perched in some bushes but she hopped down and began to scurry around on the ground. I figured she was after insects or seeds (this time of year they eat both) but it turned out that her intent was to gather nesting material.<\/p>\n

Here she has approached the long twig directly in front of her for evaluation.<\/p>\n

Note: I’ve cropped many of these images unconventionally in order to include as much of the long twig as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/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

She reached down and picked up one end of it…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/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

and tried to drag it\u00a0in the direction of some of the thickest part of the tangled mass of vegetation surrounding her (I have no idea where her nest actually was).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/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

But she struggled in her efforts because the trailing end of the twig apparently became hung up in the vegetation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/p>\n

1\/2000, 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

So she stopped to think about it for a moment and then decided to try a different approach.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/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

She grabbed the twig\u00a0near the middle of its length, picked it up,…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/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

and then turned again in the direction she wanted to go. At this point she apparently realized that there was no way\u00a0the long twig was going through that tangled mess…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"lark<\/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

so she dropped it and went on her way. Here the twig is still falling to the ground.<\/p>\n

As I was processing these images I couldn’t help putting myself in her place and thinking about how difficult it would be to maneuver nesting material without the use of my hands, using only my mouth instead. They do it hundreds of times with each nest they build and the following year they have to start all over again.<\/p>\n

Just one more reason that the life of\u00a0birds isn’t an easy one.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

I often enjoy the little dramas in the lives of birds just as much as I do the bigger ones.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39701,"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":[3,334,367,391],"tags":[31,726,137,197,1307,231],"class_list":["post-39699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-lark-sparrows","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-chondestes-grammacus","tag-female","tag-lark-sparrow","tag-nest-building","tag-nesting-material"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/lark-sparrow-7285-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-akj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39699","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=39699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}