View allAll Photos Tagged Behaviour
The normal behaviour for emerald wasps (aka cuckoo wasps) is to never be still. They dart around all the time which makes them difficult to shoot - something which is unfortunate with their amazingly coloured armour.
This one which I found at the bee hotel in the garden was a little different. She was watching a solitary wasp crawl into one of the holes and prepare it for her egg/larvae.
Emerald wasps are kleptoparasites and this one was staying still outside the hole, planning to dart in there and place her own egg and take advantage of the other wasp's hard work.
She stayed still for sevaral minutes - but I can't say she was diffucult to spot with such a rainbow of colours.
There was a wire mesh in front of the logs to prevent birds from making a smörgåsbord out of it, but I managed to shoot through the holes of it and just reach the wasp with the focus at the maximum available distance (this lens can't focus further away than 101 mm / 4").
There are several very similar-looking species in the Chrysis ignita complex, but the best guess my expert has come up with was Chrysis schencki with a big maybe in front of it.
Part 1 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52200547686/
Self-anointing is a behaviour exhibited by all species of Hedgehog, but nobody really knows why they do it. I have never seen a wild Hedgehog self-anoint, but rearing this orphaned youngster has given me plenty of opportunities to witness it. They create a foamy saliva then undergo contortions to cover those hard-to-reach bits using their surprisingly long tongues. You can see the foamy saliva on that ridge near her tongue. My Hedgehog self-anoints when she tastes or smells something new, such as the first time she tasted cat-food, a worm, marjoram, and even after licking my son's feet. But sometimes she just does it for no apparent reason. The term self-anointing was coined by Maurice Burton, and was first used in a 1958 paper in New Scientist documenting the behaviour. But the behaviour was first recorded by German zoologist Ludwig Heck in 1912, when he called it selbstbespuchen, or ‘self-spitting’. Various theories have been put forward to exlain it (eg masking their smell, creating an extra irritant for would-be predators, deterring parasites) but for each idea there are examples that run counter to it. Anyway, there seem to be very few photographs on Flickr showing this behaviour, and it is something I wasn't previously aware of, so I thought I would share it. If you want to read more about the various theories attempting to explain the behaviour this is the best site: www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/animals/article/european-hedgeho...
Green Bee-eater हरियल पतरिंगा, पतुरी (Merops orientalis), like other bee-eaters, is a richly coloured, slender bird. It is about 9 inches (16–18 cm) long with about 2 inches made up by the elongated central tail-feathers. The sexes are not visually distinguishable. The entire plumage is bright green and tinged with blue especially on the chin and throat. The crown and upper back are tinged with golden rufous. The flight feathers are rufous washed with green and tipped with blackish. A fine black line runs in front of and behind the eye.
Bird Facts: Green bee-eaters may be capable of interpreting the behaviour of human observers. They showed an ability to predict whether a human at a particular location would be capable of spotting the nest entrance and then behaved accordingly to avoid giving away the nest location. The ability to look at a situation from another's point of view was previously believed to be possessed only by primates.
A small group of Oystercatchers flew overhead and were showing signs of coming in for a landing in this spot, yelling continuously. These two were having none of it, and responded by doing some yelling of their own, repeatedly alternating between holding their heads high and then bowing down. The small flock went away after much screeching and never did land here.
Silver gulls have adapted so well to human inhabitated areas that their behaviour has become more of a scavenger at times. Lurking, searching and fighting for scraps and leftovers left by humans.
As a result, they are very common around coastal cities in Australia and New Zealand.
Their population has grown so much that other species are struggling to find safe locations during nesting periods because most of them are controlled and over crowded by the silver gull flocks
The behaviour of the ‘Cardinal Fish’ in the breeding season with the incubation of its fry in its mouth resembles that used by freshwater cichlids that incubate and protect their fry in their mouths, so we can say that the ‘Cardinal Wren’ is the cichlid of the Mediterranean.
Photograph taken in the Raco de Conill cove (Villajoyosa-Spain). Copyright @2024 José Salmerón. All rights reserved.
El comportamiento del «Pez Cardenal» en la época de cría con la incubación de sus alevines en la boca se asemeja al utilizado por los cíclidos de agua dulce que incuban y protegen a sus alevines en la boca, por lo que podemos decir que el «Reyezuelo» es el cíclido del Mediterráneo.
Fotografía tomada en la cala Raco de Conill (Villajoyosa-España). Copyright @2024 José Salmerón. Todos los derechos reservados.
Juvenile
Brown Thrasher BRTH (Toxostoma rufum)
tentatively or
experimentally feeding
Carmichael, Saskatchewan, Canada
DSCN9636
******
Mike McGrenere found one in Greater Victoria July 11th...Great Find Mike!
House Finches
April 8, 2025, Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada.
In the hedge in the yard a pair of house finches displaying courting behaviour with the male giving seeds to the female.
Haemorhous mexicanus
The red of a male House Finch comes from pigments contained in its food during molt (birds can’t make bright red or yellow colors directly). So the more pigment in the food, the redder the male. This is why people sometimes see orange or yellowish male House Finches. Females prefer to mate with the reddest male they can find, perhaps raising the chances they get a capable mate who can do his part in feeding the nestlings.
House Finches feed their nestlings exclusively plant foods, a fairly rare occurrence in the bird world. Many birds that are vegetarians as adults still find animal foods to keep their fast-growing young supplied with protein.
A quick capture before I adjusted the camera settings, surprised to get it at 1/40sec inbuilt image stabilization worked well, funny turned out to be the best one.
Always entertaining to watch but once you see them coming together you've missed it, just managed to spot the build up with this pair.
St Aidan's Nature Park.
This spider was small to medium sized and was ballooning its silk secreted from its butt (silk gland at the tip of its abdomen) to travel from this leaf to another one.
This Robin swayed and rocked from side to side for quite a while (minutes at least) with puffed feathers and beak slightly opened, displaying to another one sitting just above it. Amazing behaviour to witness. Had never seen this before.
These guys were not playing, the dust they were kicking up , the heat haze off the path, plus a large crop, messed with things here, as did having to quickly drop to one knee and hand hold., these excuses aside, worth sharing I thought.
Taken at RSPB Titchwell, on the main path, MORE IN THE SERIES BELOW IN COMMENTS
Canon EOS-1D X
ƒ/10.0
700.0 mm
1/5000
iso 1250
Last year I had some lovely encounters with cows.
In this scene I was walking in Schinnen where we encountered a herd of Scottish highlanders in a small forest.
When we were sitting there for a while observing them, this calf approached, and came closer and closer, curious to know who we were but also a little bit afraid. Here it seeks comfort with its mother.
Clearly it wanted to get to know me, and sniff my feet, So when it had found courage it stepped towards me.
Technology brings the same behaviour anywhere in the world. Everyone absorbed in their little devices...good opportunity for my candid shots I must say :)
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Partially hidden by the foliage meant AF was difficult to say the least but luckily it snapped into focus just when I was about to give up.
St Aidan's Nature Park.
Aggressive behaviour from a Blue Tit, towards a Coal Tit. There was loads of food, but the Blue Tit was determined not to share. The same wee Coal Tit was chased off another feeder by a Chaffinch.
The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus), sometimes known as the sea hawk or fish eagle, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey. It is a large raptor, reaching 60 centimetres (24 in) in length with a 2m wingspan. It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts, with a black eye patch and wings.
The Osprey tolerates a wide variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. It is found on all continents except Antarctica although in South America it occurs only as a non-breeding migrant.
As its other common name suggests, the Osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. It has evolved specialised physical characteristics and exhibits unique behaviour to assist in hunting and catching prey. As a result of these unique characteristics, it has been given its own taxonomic genus, Pandion and family, Pandionidae. Four subspecies are usually recognised. Despite its propensity to nest near water, the Osprey is not a sea-eagle.