{"id":86569,"date":"2020-06-22T05:56:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T11:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=86569"},"modified":"2020-06-22T05:56:01","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T11:56:01","slug":"male-lazuli-buntings-feeling-their-oats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/22\/male-lazuli-buntings-feeling-their-oats\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Lazuli Buntings Feeling Their Oats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago I spent 75 minutes near a small, isolated tree in a remote area of northern Utah trying to photograph male Lazuli Buntings at war with each other. It was some of the toughest bird photography I’ve ever attempted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Four or five males (I never did see a single female) were duking it out by chasing each other around the tree, through the tree and away from the tree and back. I was amazed by the speed and agility of these relatively plump-looking songbirds as one chased another through the air in tight formation. And they kept it up for the entire 75 minutes I was at the tree with only brief breaks to rest.<\/p>\n

Occasionally one of them would pause to sing from a favorite perch within the tree but the musical interlude never lasted long and the singing buntings were nearly always at least partially obscured by vegetation so in all that time I only got a few shots I like reasonably well<\/p>\n

It was amazing how much fun I had with only limited success.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, 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

The buntings were beginning to look just a little bit scruffy from molt but their flashy colors were still almost electric to the eye. This is the cleanest background I managed to get in any of my photos of them.<\/p>\n

This bird may look relaxed but that’s deceiving. The only reason he’s so exposed on the tree’s periphery is because he’s on the lookout for yet another male rival that he can go after.<\/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 + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This guy is doing the same thing – looking for rivals to pursue. In order to get a better look through the tree on his right he…<\/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 + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

turned on his perch and assumed this stretched-out pose so he could see over and through all the leaves as he looked for other buntings in the tree to chase after. They seldom had to wait long before they got another male in their crosshairs.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, 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

I believe this was the most dominant male in the bunch. He had two favorite singing perches, both of them vertical branches within the tree that almost never allowed me a clean shot despite repeatedly maneuvering my pickup for the best shooting angles I could get.<\/p>\n

So, how did I keep track of the individual bird that I thought was the most dominant one given the fact that all of the males looked nearly identical? Check out the ‘object’ stuck to his plumage directly behind his right eye.<\/p>\n

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It’s an insect wing and it was stuck to the side of his face for the entire time I was at the tree. Apparently preening and cleaning his plumage was the last thing on his mind with all those other males to chase after. Lazuli Buntings are primarily seed and fruit eaters through most of the year but they eat insects and other arthropods during the breeding season.<\/p>\n

This photo also gives us a good look at the bicolored bill of Lazuli Buntings – the upper mandible is black while the lower mandible is a very light blue, often appearing white. I’ve found that bright lower mandible to be problematic for photography because it often produces annoying specular highlights (very bright light reflections).<\/p>\n

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So all in all it was an exciting morning with the buntings even though my photographic results didn’t quite meet my expectations. As a bonus I got in some valuable practice following quick and elusive birds with my lens and I learned a great deal about their behavior.<\/p>\n

Right up my alley.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days ago I spent 75 minutes near a small, isolated tree in a remote area of northern Utah trying to photograph male Lazuli Buntings at war with each other.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86570,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,394,569],"tags":[4042,107,571,2873,572,311],"class_list":["post-86569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-lazuli-buntings","tag-bicolored-bill","tag-diet","tag-lazuli-bunting","tag-males","tag-passerina-amoena","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/lazuli-bunting-2076-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-mwh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86569","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=86569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}