![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/red-breasted-nuthatch-0546-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"red-breasted-nuthatch-0546-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nUntil yesterday I’ve had no luck at all with nuthatches of any species.<\/p>\n
But even after taking hundreds of photos of them I didn’t\u00a0have much luck yesterday either because of extremely challenging light angles, silly mistakes I made and the flittiness of\u00a0the birds. I swear, because of their habit of staying buried in the\u00a0trees and their\u00a0hyperactive\u00a0tendencies\u00a0nuthatches are almost as difficult to photograph well as kinglets.<\/p>\n
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1\/1000, f\/6.3, 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 This one had been feeding on seeds from the Douglas Fir cone it’s hanging upside down from. The light wasn’t very good but I was able to\u00a0take many photos of them in a topsy-turvy pose like this.\u00a0But I\u00a0rarely had a good look at their face and eye so this shot\u00a0stood out for me because of the nice\u00a0head turn that gave us excellent eye contact, including a catch light.<\/p>\n I’m now highly motivated to try photographing these nuthatches during nesting season for a lot of reasons but one of them stands out. I love interesting behavioral bird photography and nesting adults of this species\u00a0are well\u00a0known for\u00a0gathering and smearing large amounts of conifer resin around the entrance of their nest cavity to deter predators and competitors from entering it. It would be a difficult behavior to photograph well and without disturbing the nesting birds\u00a0but I’d sure like a chance at it.<\/p>\n I actually had a wonderful opportunity to photograph one of these nuthatches two days ago but I\u00a0botched it and I\u00a0did so in spectacular fashion. I had\u00a0my pickup parked next to this same Doug Fir tree\u00a0where we could hear and occasionally\u00a0see nuthatches but they wouldn’t come out to play. Ever! So after consuming more than my quota of coffee and then iced milk to go with my chocolate donut I felt the urgent\u00a0need to tap my kidneys so I got out of my pickup, stood behind it and\u00a0began to water the horse.<\/p>\n I’ll bet you can see this coming. During the process of making my bladder gladder and\u00a0with my camera gear\u00a0still inside my pickup a\u00a0truly\u00a0evil\u00a0nuthatch\u00a0chose that moment to land on a Doug\u00a0Fir cone very close and out in the open to forage for seeds. There was nothing I could do but continue with the.. task.. at.. hand and listen to the multiple bursts from Mia’s camera in the back seat of my truck as I watched the nuthatch perform for her.<\/p>\n It lasted for what seemed like an eternity. I simply could not believe my bad timing and my only consolation was that I finally\u00a0had an empty tank again.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Until yesterday I’ve had no luck at all with nuthatches of any species.<\/p>\n