![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/western-tanager-4443b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-tanager-4443b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nSometimes I find things that are disturbing when I finally get around to looking more closely at some of my photos. Thankfully it doesn’t happen very often but that doesn’t make it any easier when it occurs.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This is the male of the apparently mated pair of Western Tanagers I photographed about three weeks ago on my camping trip to Idaho and Montana. He was “happy,” healthy and even cooperative as he flitted around my campsite in his never-ending search for insects.<\/p>\n I had positioned my camera on its tripod in anticipation of photographing him in the aspens that ringed my campsite but here he chose to land so close to me I had to remove my teleconverter and shoot vertically to keep all of him in frame. At that point I was learning that this old stump was among his favorite perches so I always positioned myself further away from the stump after that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This photo of the female, his presumed mate, would normally never see the light of day because of its multiple major flaws (including a distractingly out of focus and contrasty perch and a soft bird) but I need it to tell my sad story.<\/p>\n In contrast to her mate this female was incredibly shy so I was never able to get any decent photos of her. But last night while I actually had my finger on the delete button to banish this photo to my trash bin I noticed something that caught my attention. Her lower mandible didn’t look right. At first I thought it was probably just debris on her bill but I decided to investigate and take a closer look.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can’t be sure but it looks to me like she has a diseased lower mandible. In fact if I’m not mistaken I can see all the way through it to the other side.<\/p>\n At this point it didn’t seem to affect her feeding behavior. At least twice a saw her capture insects and consume them but I’m sure worried about her over the long haul. At the very least I hope she and her mate are able to raise their brood to fledging before things go really bad for her.<\/p>\n I’ll admit that sometimes I probably got too attached to “my” birds. It’s a tough world out there and things like this happen far more often than most of us realize. But I spent a lot of time with these tanagers over almost four days so discovering this anomaly in the female really stings.<\/p>\n If you have a heart it’s part of the human condition I guess. I sure hope I’m wrong but I’m not optimistic.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS – I have a question I should have asked my readers about long ago. As a biologist I’m fully aware that the term “mandible” refers to the lower jawbone and “maxilla” refers to the upper jawbone in most vertebrates. But over the years I’ve noticed that in the “bird world” the terms “upper mandible” and “lower mandible” are usually (though not always) used for the upper and lower bills of birds and “maxilla” isn’t used at all.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n If so, maybe it’s because bills aren’t bones but it doesn’t seem consistent so I have to wonder if it’s technically correct.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What say ye, Dan Gleason (or anyone else in the know, including rehabbers, etc)?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes I find things that are disturbing when I finally get around to looking more closely at some of my photos. Thankfully it doesn’t happen very often but that doesn’t make it any easier when it occurs.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/western-tanager-4523-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-tanager-4523-ron-dudley\\"")
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