I ran out of time to include detailed image techs but\u00a0these photos were taken at or near 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3457-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3457-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Three months ago (September 21, 2018) while I had my lens trained on this Sage Thrasher I had no idea ‘he’ was going to put on an extended\u00a0show for me. I was just enjoying the thrasher in the pretty setting of wild rose and\u00a0colorful\u00a0rose hips when suddenly and unexpectedly…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3466-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3466-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
he began to retch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3469-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3469-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
A few seconds later he brought up a\u00a0fruit pit (a sumac I believe)\u00a0to the back of his throat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3474-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3474-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
He worked it to the tip of his bill and soon dropped it. Sadly I missed capturing the falling\u00a0pit because I let off of the shutter button at just the wrong time. Those things drop fast.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3508-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3508-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
But surprisingly\u00a0he gave me another chance at it just a few seconds later\u00a0and this time I was determined to catch the pit (or whatever it turned out to be) as it fell. Once again he retched,…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3509-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3509-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
the pit appeared in the back of his throat…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3528-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3528-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
and then he maneuvered it to the end of his bill and played with it for a while (long enough for me to take 19 shots between this one and the previous one).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3535-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3535-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Eventually he used his tongue to push the pit away from the end of his bill…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3536-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"sage-thrasher-3536-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
so it fell through the leaves to the ground. Here the pit can be seen intersecting the\u00a0rose hip directly\u00a0in front of his lower breast as it fell.<\/p>\n
This is the first time I remember seeing a songbird regurgitate multiple pits (or pellets or anything else) in such a short time so\u00a0the second one\u00a0surprised me. But I suppose it makes sense\u00a0because they often swallow several large\u00a0fruits or berries within a very short time.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t help but snicker a little at the timing of this post\u00a0given that last night was New Year’s Eve,\u00a0a night that’s infamous for producing hangovers and up-chuckers on New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n
I’ll admit that there’s a variety of reasons I wish I was “young and dumb” again but\u00a0partying too much\u00a0sure\u00a0isn’t one of them. I’d prefer to take the young\u00a0and leave the dumb behind but all too often they\u00a0seem to\u00a0be linked\u00a0together, especially on New Year’s Eve.<\/p>\n
Cheers. And Happy New Year!<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
PS – It’s my fervent\u00a0hope that\u00a0anyone and everyone\u00a0who set off fireworks in neighborhoods at midnight\u00a0last night has the\u00a0mother of all hangovers today. But for the first time in many years I dodged that miserable bullet in my neighborhood because at midnight it was about 15 degrees with a howling wind so it was too cold for the inconsiderate merrymakers to come out and play. <\/em><\/p>\nAll I heard was the frigid\u00a0wind which lulled me to sleep.. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This series of photos may be just a little too timely for anyone who partied too hearty last night on New Year’s Eve… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67630,"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":[334,392,379],"tags":[4385,1535,4384,3159,271,311,2332],"class_list":["post-67621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-sage-thrashers","tag-new-years-eve-fireworks","tag-oreoscoptes-montanus","tag-regurgitating-fruit-pits","tag-rose-hips","tag-sage-thrasher","tag-utah-2","tag-wild-rose"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/sage-thrasher-3528-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-hAF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67621","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=67621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}