{"id":88000,"date":"2020-07-30T05:48:37","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T11:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=88000"},"modified":"2020-07-30T15:48:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T21:48:14","slug":"willow-flycatcher-now-thats-a-pretty-neat-trick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/30\/willow-flycatcher-now-thats-a-pretty-neat-trick\/","title":{"rendered":"Willow Flycatcher – Now That’s A Pretty Neat Trick"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m regularly dazzled by the athletic abilities of birds. It happened again yesterday and this time it involved prey.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wish some of the photos were better but I was shooting through a tunnel of vegetation so I was lucky to get any sharp shots at all. But they still clearly document the incredibly quick reflexes and athleticism of this small songbird.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The flycatcher had been hawking insects from the air but this time his victim was a large and apparently flightless insect he’d captured on vegetation or on the ground. He was manipulating it in his bill when…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

the insect suddenly went flying through the air. In an instant the flycatcher had already reacted by raising his wings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Amazingly he managed to catch the bug again before it had fallen more than about an inch vertically.<\/p>\n

The flycatcher and insect are soft because the out of focus diagonal branch between my lens and the flycatcher prevented my active focus point from following the bird but it’s still clear that the insect was recaptured very quickly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then he landed on a different perch and played with his meal for a few moments before…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

tossing it into the air and gobbling it down. As is often the case in situations like this it all happened so fast I had no idea what I’d captured until I looked at my photos on my big screen at home.<\/p>\n

This bird photographer is infinitely jealous of the reaction speed demonstrated by the flycatcher. If my reflexes were that quick I’d rarely if ever be too slow for capturing takeoff shots again. I can only dream.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When I zoomed in on the previous photo I was intrigued by the interesting shape of his tongue. Nearly 200 years ago Audubon described the shape of a flycatcher tongue as follows: “The tongue is … triangular, very thin, sagittate and papillate at the base, flat above, pointed, but a little slit, and with the edges slightly lacerated.”<\/p>\n

And based on the film of stringy saliva between the tongue and the lower mandible I’ll bet it’s sticky to aid in capturing insect prey on the wing.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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