{"id":8789,"date":"2016-05-19T08:11:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T12:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/p4td.lightshedder.com\/?p=8789"},"modified":"2016-05-19T08:11:57","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T12:11:57","slug":"passing-the-twig-courtship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/p4td_\/?p=8789","title":{"rendered":"Passing the twig: courtship"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Roseate Spoonbills, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, St A. Florida<\/p><\/div>\n

In late April and early May each year I have two events. The Florida Birding and Photo Fest and the Biggest Week in American Birding at Magee Marsh and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in Ohio. Essentially I go direct from one to the other and have about 15 days of excellent bird photography…mostly nesting waders in Florida, and migrating warblers and songbirds in Ohio. I also come back from the two trips with well over 1000 images…keepers that is…I probably take close to 4000 frames. I share a few images from the events, while I am there, but clearly I have a lot more that I have not shared. All of which is to explain why, after several weeks, we are back to a Florida image for today’s post, though I have been back in Maine for several days now. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

These two Roseate Spoonbills at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm wild bird rookery spent most of a day attempting to build a nest in this low Mangrove…an odd place to begin with. They abandoned the attempt overnight, but while they were active, I had a chance to observe courtship and nest building activity up close. Here the male is passing a bit of viney twig to the female.<\/p>\n

Nikon P900 at 400mm equivalent field of view (I told you they were close). 1\/125th @ ISO 125 @ f5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.<\/p>\n

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