{"id":40930,"date":"2016-07-22T05:34:28","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T11:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=40930"},"modified":"2016-07-22T05:45:46","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T11:45:46","slug":"my-trip-of-tiny-birds-least-sandpiper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/22\/my-trip-of-tiny-birds-least-sandpiper\/","title":{"rendered":"My Trip Of Tiny Birds – Least Sandpiper"},"content":{"rendered":"

During my Montana camping trip last week I was able to photograph two of the tiniest birds of their types in the world. The Northern Pygmy Owl with prey I posted a few days ago<\/a> is one of the smallest owls in North America and the Least Sandpiper is the smallest shorebird in the world.<\/p>\n

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\"least<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/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 Least Sandpiper just over a week ago as it was feeding in a small pond at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. This was typical habitat for them as they often feed in exposed mud or grassy mudflats. These birds have already concluded their breeding season in the arctic tundra and far northern boreal forests and are in the midst of their migration to the Gulf Coast or Central and South America.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"least<\/p>\n

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

Dang, these birds are tiny! Averaging only about .7 oz they’re barely larger than a typical sparrow and\u00a0they’re the smallest of the peeps. That means the photographer must be quite close to them to get frame-filling shots but this species is known to be relatively tame and quite approachable. This one seemed unconcerned by my presence (I was in my pickup)\u00a0as it was feeding in the mud.<\/p>\n

Researchers studying this species and a few others\u00a0have discovered an interesting and unique feeding mechanism.\u00a0These little birds\u00a0probe wet mud with their bills for food (small invertebrates) and then use the surface tension of water to transport prey very quickly from the tip of their bills to their mouths. The process is known as surface tension transport and it quickly and efficiently\u00a0“wicks” a water droplet containing food to their mouths.<\/p>\n

Bird photography is often a compromise and this image is no exception. This photo as presented is not level (a straight line from the eye of the bird to the eye in the reflection is not vertical). But when I rotate the image to level it I lose the top of the head and the eye\u00a0in the reflection so I chose this composition as the lesser of two evils.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

During my Montana camping trip last week I was able to photograph two of the tiniest birds of their types in the world. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40932,"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":[6,334,392,2700,360],"tags":[2697,468,220,263,1800,3032,3031],"class_list":["post-40930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-least-sandpipers","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","tag-calidris-minutilla","tag-least-sandpiper","tag-montana-2","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-rotation","tag-surface-tension-transport","tag-tiny-birds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/least-sandpiper-7853-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aEa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40930","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=40930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}