{"id":72792,"date":"2019-06-19T06:16:31","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T12:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=72792"},"modified":"2019-06-19T07:23:58","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T13:23:58","slug":"house-wren-harrassed-by-a-hummingbird-and-throwing-a-pellet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/19\/house-wren-harrassed-by-a-hummingbird-and-throwing-a-pellet\/","title":{"rendered":"House Wren Harrassed By A Hummingbird And Throwing A Pellet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve photographed a variety of songbirds, wading birds and raptors throwing pellets but yesterday was the first time I’ve been able to document a wren of any species exhibiting the behavior.<\/p>\n

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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

Regular readers will recognize both this perch and the male Broad-tailed Hummingbird. The serviceberry twig is his favorite perch and I’ve been photographing him on it for a couple of weeks now. He literally thinks he owns it and I suspect he and his mate may have a nest elsewhere in the bush.<\/p>\n

I’m only including this photo as background for some of the behavior I’ve documented below.<\/p>\n

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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

On most days there’s a lot going on in that serviceberry bush involving other species. This house wren is nesting only a few feet from the bush and to the dismay of the hummer it regularly perches in the same serviceberry bush. Yesterday morning I took an entire series of photos as the hummer harassed the wren but it wasn’t easy to do well.<\/p>\n

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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

Whenever the hummingbird was close enough to the wren to get them both entirely in frame the two birds were always in different planes relative to my camera so the hummer was always dreadfully soft (I had prefocused on the wren). When he was further away and sharp I always cut off body parts. But at least I documented the behavior.<\/p>\n

The hummer kept coming in closer and closer to the wren and eventually drove it away.<\/p>\n

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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

But soon the wren showed the hummingbird who’s really<\/em> king of the hill by taking possession of the hummer’s favorite perch in the same bush and declaring his dominance with song. The hummer buzzed the wren a few times but never came anywhere near as close to it as it had before. Apparently the hummer felt less safe coming in close with the larger bird on a more exposed perch.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, 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

But soon the wren’s behavior changed – at first it was a subtle change but I knew what it signified. Suddenly when its beak was open it wasn’t singing and its tongue was out. When combined with other cues I knew he was retching in preparation for throwing a pellet. So I simply laid on my shutter button in a long burst and hoped I’d be able to capture the pellet as it was ejected.<\/p>\n

With small birds like this the pellet is ejected extremely fast – the tenth of a second between shots in a burst with my camera is an eternity and I knew my chances weren’t very good.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, 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

But thankfully I got lucky.\u00a0Very little in the shot is sharp but I did document the behavior.<\/p>\n

Sometimes in bird photography small victories are about all we can hope for.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Notes:<\/i><\/p>\n