{"id":41639,"date":"2016-08-22T05:10:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T11:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=41639"},"modified":"2016-08-22T06:30:20","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T12:30:20","slug":"american-avocet-with-a-death-grip-on-a-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/22\/american-avocet-with-a-death-grip-on-a-rival\/","title":{"rendered":"American Avocet With A Death Grip On A Rival"},"content":{"rendered":"

No deaths or injuries actually occurred but for a few moments\u00a0it sure looked like they might.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

Three days ago at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge I had my lens trained on these two American Avocets mostly because they were close. I’m not fond of messy water like this but you never know when\u00a0an interesting behavior might break out and these two didn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n

This shot illustrates\u00a0the primary physical\u00a0differences between male and female.\u00a0The smaller female (the bird on the left)\u00a0also has a shorter bill that is more recurved than that of the male. I was focused on the female so the male isn’t quite sharp.<\/p>\n

I had noticed no initial tension between the birds when suddenly…<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

a furious and serious fight broke out. The female on the left seemed to be the instigator and the male, perhaps to protect his head and eyes, immediately plunged his head and neck underwater.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

He\u00a0held it there for 6 frames (fired in a burst) as the female continued to be the aggressor.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

When he eventually started to lift his head out of the water…<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

the smaller female continued to push her luck.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

But\u00a0now as the male turned the tables\u00a0on her there was going to be hell to pay for her cheekiness.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

Now it was the female’s turn to plunge her head underwater for protection as the male attacked.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

He was apparently determined to exact his revenge.\u00a0He grabbed her upper neck with his bill and held on for some time as she struggled.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

He had her in this “death grip” for long enough that I was able to get 21 shots of it.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

She struggled to escape but he was having none of it.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

When she finally did get away she plunged her head underwater again for an instant…<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

but when she realized she was actually free…<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

she wasted no time\u00a0in getting the hell out of Dodge.<\/p>\n

I have no idea why they were fighting. It isn’t breeding season so perhaps they were fighting over feeding rights. But soon after these shots were taken both birds went back to feeding quite close to each other. Go figure…<\/p>\n

I LOVE interesting behaviors, whether I understand them or not.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: Techs for each of these images were: 1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

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

No deaths or injuries actually occurred but for a few moments it sure looked like they might.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41648,"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":[437,338,334,394],"tags":[415,27,49,3070,140,471,276],"class_list":["post-41639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-avocets-shore-birds","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","tag-agonistic-behavior","tag-american-avocet","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-death-grip","tag-fighting","tag-recurvirostra-americana","tag-sexual-dimorphism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/american-avocet-9761-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aPB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41639","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=41639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}