{"id":49648,"date":"2017-07-02T05:49:16","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T11:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=49648"},"modified":"2017-07-02T07:39:32","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T13:39:32","slug":"male-mountain-bluebird-feeding-a-hungry-fledgling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/02\/male-mountain-bluebird-feeding-a-hungry-fledgling\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Mountain Bluebird Feeding A Hungry Fledgling"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the bird world\u00a0fledglings of\u00a0most species always seem to be starving,\u00a0frantic, vocal\u00a0and impatient. This young bluebird was no exception.<\/p>\n

Five days ago in the mountains of Summit County I watched as an entire family of Mountain Bluebirds hopscotched down the gravel road in front of my pickup. The adults were harvesting insects from the road and their youngsters were tagging along in hopes of being fed. Occasionally\u00a0several of the birds landed on bushes along the edge of the road and I made multiple attempts at getting close enough to them for decent photographs but without any luck, at least at first.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Finally the adult male allowed me a fairly\u00a0close approach but as with all of these images he was side-lit. In the photo of him I liked best he was looking slightly away but that did put good light on his face.\u00a0A few seconds later he\u00a0joined\u00a0the rest of his\u00a0family on the road in front of me and searched for\u00a0 more “bugs”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Soon one of the fledglings landed on a dead twig and also let me get close enough. I believe\u00a0this bird\u00a0already knew its male parent had an insect and this was the young bird’s way of making itself\u00a0conspicuous to the adult as a deserving recipient of a tasty treat. Apparently it worked because…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

just a few seconds later it started to beg enthusiastically with typical and frantic wing-fluttering. Naturally it turned away from me when it did so but… well, you still get the picture. Apparently the youngster could now see an adult coming in with food.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The snack turned out to be a cricket and the fledgling acted ravenous.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The adult male almost shoved the cricket down the throat of the youngster and then beat a quick retreat…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

to a twig directly below the young bluebird. His posture suggests he was crouched in anticipation of takeoff but he wasn’t – I have multiple photos of him in this pose. It’s almost as if he’s “ducking” in an effort to put more distance between him and his obnoxious youngster. If so I really don’t blame him… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

A couple of these\u00a0photos aren’t quite as sharp as I prefer but I think they’re acceptable and I did want to tell the story. Mountain Bluebirds are a species I don’t have much luck with here in Utah (I’ve had more success with them in Montana) and their spectacular “blueness” has strong appeal for me.<\/p>\n

Throw some interesting behavior into the mix and I couldn’t resist posting these images.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

In the bird world fledglings of most species always seem to be starving, frantic, vocal and impatient. This young bluebird was no exception.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49653,"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":[334,392,1504],"tags":[1555,564,3438,136,145,211,741,256,1505,789,311,3439],"class_list":["post-49648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-mountain-bluebirds","tag-begging","tag-breeding-plumage","tag-cricket","tag-feeding","tag-fledgling","tag-male","tag-mountain-bluebird","tag-prey","tag-sialia-currocoides","tag-summit-county","tag-utah-2","tag-wing-fluttering"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/mountain-bluebird-0608-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-cUM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49648","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=49648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}