{"id":8447,"date":"2012-10-13T16:36:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T22:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=8447"},"modified":"2012-10-13T16:44:52","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T22:44:52","slug":"yellow-headed-blackbirds-displaying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/13\/yellow-headed-blackbirds-displaying\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellow-headed Blackbirds Displaying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently we spent a few days touring some of our local birding hotspots with Jim and Nancy DeWitt,\u00a0friends from Alaska who were visiting\u00a0our area.\u00a0 One of Jim’s goals was to see and photograph Yellow-headed Blackbirds, a species not found in Alaska.\u00a0 We felt\u00a0sure we could\u00a0find some for him but sadly we failed, even though we had seen them recently.\u00a0 Apparently they have\u00a0skedaddled south\u00a0for warmer climes.\u00a0 But the experience\u00a0made me realize that I’ve neglected the species in my posts so I decided to rectify the situation.<\/p>\n

Males are real acrobats in their springtime territorial displays and they have two types of “song spreads” when they’re singing – each accompanied by a distinct song type.\u00a0 Both of these photos are of a male displaying one of those two spreads – the Symmetrical Song Spread.\u00a0\u00a0 I prefer to photograph these birds doing this spread because during the Asymmetrical Song Spread they arch their necks sharply to the left (yes, always to the left and never the right) which exposes the neck skin and\u00a0often makes for a decidedly unattractive photo.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"yellow<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

During the Symmetrical Song Spread, the bird spreads its wings to reveal the white patches and the tail is splayed out and lowered.\u00a0 If you can get the right light and exposure\u00a0on the bird, this posture\u00a0will often give you\u00a0an interesting and rather dramatic image.\u00a0\u00a0The Symmetrical Song Spread is most often displayed when competing males fly over their territory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/100, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But at a different angle, the same behavior can look pretty silly.\u00a0\u00a0 Technically not a perfect shot (I had a very slow shutter speed) but I’ve always liked it because it\u00a0brings a smile to my face.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note – If you find the “left handededness” of certain bird behaviors to be as intriguing as I do, you may be interested in the following links:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 * A post by Nathan Pieplow<\/strong><\/a> documenting the head turn that is always<\/em>\u00a0 to the left in the Asymmetrical Song Spread.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 * One of my posts on a “left-handed” Short-eared Owl<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0– this bird, without exception, always carried its prey in its left foot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently we spent a few days touring some of our local birding hotspots with Jim and Nancy DeWitt,\u00a0friends from Alaska who were visiting\u00a0our area.\u00a0 One of Jim’s goals was to see and photograph Yellow-headed Blackbirds, a species not found in Alaska.\u00a0 We felt\u00a0sure we could\u00a0find some for him but sadly we failed, even though we had seen them recently.\u00a0 Apparently they have\u00a0skedaddled south\u00a0for warmer climes.\u00a0 But the experience\u00a0made me realize that I’ve neglected the species in my posts so I decided to rectify the situation. Males are real acrobats in their springtime territorial displays and they have two types of “song spreads” when they’re singing – each accompanied by a distinct song type.\u00a0 Both of these photos are of a male displaying one of those two spreads – the Symmetrical Song Spread.\u00a0\u00a0 I prefer to photograph these birds doing this spread because during the Asymmetrical Song Spread they arch their necks sharply to the left (yes, always to the left and never the right) which exposes the neck skin and\u00a0often makes for a decidedly unattractive photo.   \u00a01\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, natural light During the Symmetrical Song Spread, the bird spreads its wings to reveal the white patches and the tail is splayed out and lowered.\u00a0 If you can get the right light and exposure\u00a0on the bird, this posture\u00a0will often give you\u00a0an interesting and rather dramatic image.\u00a0\u00a0The Symmetrical Song Spread is most often displayed when competing males fly over their territory.     \u00a0\u00a01\/100, f\/8, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc,…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,896,897],"tags":[900,901,899,898],"class_list":["post-8447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-blackbirds-2","category-yellow-headed-blackbirds","tag-asymmetrical-song-spread","tag-symmetrical-song-spread","tag-xanthocephalus-xanthocephalus","tag-yellow-headed-blackbird"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-2cf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8447","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=8447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}