{"id":88038,"date":"2020-07-31T05:45:29","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T11:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=88038"},"modified":"2020-07-31T07:04:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T13:04:17","slug":"a-male-lazuli-bunting-doing-a-kingfisher-impersonation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/31\/a-male-lazuli-bunting-doing-a-kingfisher-impersonation\/","title":{"rendered":"A Male Lazuli Bunting Doing A Kingfisher Impersonation"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s all about expectations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, 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

By now I’m sure all of my regular readers recognize this perch overhanging a stream in the mountains. In recent months I’ve posted over two dozen photos of immature and adult Belted Kingfishers that were perched on it. I’ve spent so much time looking through my lens at kingfishers perched here that I habitually refer to this dead branch as the ‘kingfisher perch’.<\/p>\n

This photo was taken two days ago and the kingfisher is a mess. He’s wringing wet from a recent dive to catch the fish in his bill and he’s molting (in other photos I can see many missing wing and tail feathers). I actually laughed at him when I took the shot because once again he’s in a defensive posture in response to an attacking Barn Swallow but he couldn’t open his bill to look more menacing like he usually does in this situation because if he did he’d drop the fish. So here he’s trying to look mean but he can’t open his bill to look more aggressive to the swallow. It must have been frustrating for the kingfisher.<\/p>\n

But my real point with this photo is to emphasize the fact that when I see this perch my mind screams kingfisher!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, 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

So when this male Lazuli Bunting landed on the ‘kingfisher perch’ on the same morning the previous photo was taken it briefly threw me a bit off kilter. I rarely see other birds perched here and the small size and bright colors of the bunting are so shockingly different from those of a kingfisher I had a moment or two of discombobulation as I looked through my lens.<\/p>\n

Here I’ve left the bunting small in the frame to allow a more complete view of the perch but…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

here’s a tighter crop to provide a better look at the beautiful little male.<\/p>\n

My friends know me as the poster child for ‘creature of habit’ and I was conditioned to seeing almost nothing but kingfishers here so this colorful little bunting threw me for a bit of a loop.<\/p>\n

But given my predilection for and comfort with routine that’s easy to do when something new and unexpected comes along.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

It’s all about expectations.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88041,"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":[2853,334,392,569],"tags":[2329,141,571,211,1579],"class_list":["post-88038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belted-kingfishers","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-lazuli-buntings","tag-belted-kingfisher","tag-fish","tag-lazuli-bunting","tag-male","tag-molting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/lazuli-bunting-5517-significant-crop-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-mTY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88038","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=88038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}