{"id":77822,"date":"2019-11-03T04:06:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T11:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=77822"},"modified":"2019-11-03T13:47:16","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T20:47:16","slug":"mountain-chickadee-an-amazing-feat-pun-intended-of-flexibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/03\/mountain-chickadee-an-amazing-feat-pun-intended-of-flexibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Chickadee – An Amazing Feat (pun intended) Of Flexibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

You won’t know why it’s a pun until you’ve seen both photos.<\/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

Yesterday morning in the mountains I had a delightfully frustrating time (now there’s a contradiction in terms) photographing Mountain Chickadees feeding on Douglas Fir seeds. If this pose looks familiar it’s because the chickadees were using the same feeding technique to get at the seeds within the cones that was used by the Red-breasted Nuthatch I posted a couple of days ago. Here I caught the chickadee hanging upside down from its food source and deciding where in the cone to probe for the next seed.<\/p>\n

In these situations I never really know exactly what I’m photographing. Their feeding activity is so fast and frenzied and they stay in the same place for such a short period of time that all I can do is try to get the bird in focus and then lay on my shutter button as I fire a burst. And of course using a DSLR camera my view through the viewfinder is blocked much of the time by my slapping shutter screen so I often don’t know what behavior I’ve photographed until I review my photos at home.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, 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\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Twelve shots and 1.2 seconds later the chickadee had turned 180\u00b0 on the cone and gave me a near mirror image pose as compared to the previous photo.\u00a0As I was processing these images I almost missed a small detail that I find amazing when I think about it.<\/p>\n

Notice the position of the right foot in both photos. The position of that foot on the cone is exactly the same in both shots despite the 180\u00b0 turn of the chickadee. When I study the photos it becomes obvious to me that that foot never moved or changed its grip on the cone as the bird turned completely around. So just imagine the flexibility of the foot and leg.<\/p>\n

That’s a pretty neat trick when you think about it. It would be like a human standing in place on one foot and then turning our entire body completely backward to face the other way without moving or repositioning our foot. I don’t know about you but if I tried that I’d surely dislocate my hip and knee and probably break my ankle before I accomplished the task. It makes my eyes water just to think about it. We can do something similar with our arms and hands but certainly not with our legs and feet.<\/p>\n

I didn’t know birds could do that!<\/p>\n

Comparative anatomy and the evolutionary processes that produced our differences are amazing.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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