{"id":84707,"date":"2020-05-03T06:40:59","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T12:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=84707"},"modified":"2020-05-03T08:14:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T14:14:33","slug":"mountain-bluebirds-at-and-near-their-nest-cavity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/03\/mountain-bluebirds-at-and-near-their-nest-cavity\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Bluebirds At And Near Their Nest Cavity"},"content":{"rendered":"

These photos were taken five days ago in the mountains of northern Utah. I finally finished culling all 1400+ photos I took of the bluebirds and processed a few of my keepers to give my viewers a sense of what I was able (and unable) to accomplish photographically in the very challenging shooting conditions that morning.<\/p>\n

Despite my efforts to photograph both the male and female about equally most of my better shots turned out to be of the male. Because of the aggravating shadows at the nest cavity that ruined most of my photos of birds at the entrance I’m including only a single photo taken there but in all of these shots the bluebirds were within a few feet of the nest.<\/p>\n

I’ll try to keep my narration down to a minimum – the photos largely speak for themselves. Sorry, I ran out of time to include image techs.<\/p>\n

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The male keeping an eye out for the marauding House Wren who had designs of its own on the nest cavity.<\/p>\n

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Seconds later he was joined by his mate. At these focal lengths I couldn’t get both birds sharp and she’s partially obstructed by a twig but I still think the image helps to tell their story.<\/p>\n

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This was one of the male’s favorite perches. I’ll include another photo of him perched here below. I like the second one better.<\/p>\n

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This is probably my best individual shot of the female. I really didn’t have much luck with her.<\/p>\n

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One of the few times the male seemed to fully relax for a moment or two. Most of the time he was…<\/p>\n

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flitting around in a frenzy, probably because of the intrusive and incredibly fast House Wren and another pair of bluebirds that threatened to take over their nest cavity.<\/p>\n

But in the specific situation when this photo was taken his one-wing-up posture may have been due to something else. This isn’t a takeoff posture; instead he repeatedly flicked one wing or the other but never both at the same time and I believe he was looking at his mate while he was doing it so it may have been some form of communication. Maybe not, I dunno.<\/p>\n

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Then he relaxed again but only briefly.<\/p>\n

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I had to include at least one photo of one of the bluebirds at the nest cavity. That nuisance shadow on his left wing seems less obtrusive than it usually was and I like the pose and the good look at his beautiful dorsal blues.<\/p>\n

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I’ll conclude with one of my favorite photos of the male.<\/p>\n

I hope to have another chance at these bluebirds in the next day or two. I haven’t been back since these photos were taken because of inclement weather and especially because significantly more people in the mountains on the weekend would increase the chances that other folks would come along on the lonely dirt road and my presence near the nest tree would disclose the location of the nest cavity (otherwise nest cavities are very hard to spot.)<\/p>\n

Nesting birds don’t need that kind of pressure, even when it’s intention is benign but sometimes it’s malicious. For the last five years my instinct to protect nest trees has been amplified by the tragedy of a Williamson’s Sapsucker nest tree that still had eggs in the nest cavity that was deliberately cut down by campers.<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I’m angry again just thinking and writing about it.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Note: Blog readers and others often ask me what my typical keeper rate is when I’m culling images. In the past I’ve estimated it to be about 10% on average. With these bluebirds I took about 1450 photos but there’s probably only about 25 of them that I think are good enough to stand on their own as quality shots, some of them only marginally.<\/em><\/p>\n

That said I actually kept many more of them than just the 25 for the following reasons:<\/em><\/p>\n