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The defensive behaviour of the lapwing, as I was close to the nest it attempted to distract me by flying away from the nest site and bring attention to itself.
Shottisham, Suffolk, 6 February 2020 (other hoverflies were also seen exhibiting this behaviour - a second E. tenax, three Episyrphus balteatus and a Syrphus torvus)
Shorebirds of Ireland, Freshwater Birds of Ireland and The Birds of Ireland: A Field Guide with Jim Wilson.
www.markcarmodyphotography.com
The Sanderling (Calidris alba) is a small wader. It is a circumpolar Arctic breeder, and is a long-distance migrant, wintering south to South America, South Europe, Africa, and Australia. It is highly gregarious in winter, sometimes forming large flocks on coastal mudflats or sandy beaches.
This bird is similar in size to a Dunlin, but stouter, with a thick bill. It shows a strong white wingbar in flight, and runs along the sandy beaches it prefers with a characteristic "bicycling" action, stopping frequently to pick small food items. It eats small crabs and other small invertebrates. In spring, the birds arrive on the High Arctic breeding grounds.
The winter bird is very pale, almost white apart from a dark shoulder patch. Later in the summer, the face and throat become brick-red. Sanderling behavior is distinctive. It can be told from other small wading birds, given good views, by its lack of a hind toe. (wikipedia)
A Sanderling in breeding plumage along the Sagres coastline, Portugal.
Shorebirds of Ireland, Freshwater Birds of Ireland and The Birds of Ireland: A Field Guide with Jim Wilson.
www.markcarmodyphotography.com
There are three species: the Bohemian waxwing (B. garrulus), the Japanese waxwing (B. japonica) and the cedar waxwing (B. cedrorum). The Bohemian waxwing is a starling-sized bird. It is short-tailed, mainly brownish-grey, and has a conspicuous crest on its head. The male of the nominate subspecies has a black mask through the eye and a black throat. There is a white streak behind the bill and a white curve below the eye. The lower belly is a rich chestnut colour and there are cinnamon-coloured areas around the mask. The rump is grey and the tail ends in a bright yellow band with a broad black border above it. The wings are very distinctive; the flight feathers are black and the primaries have markings that produce a yellow stripe and white "fishhooks" on the closed wing. The adult's secondaries end in long red appendages with the sealing wax appearance that gives the bird its English name. The eyes are dark brown, the bill is mainly black, and the legs are dark grey or black. In flight, the waxwing's large flocks, long wings and short tail give some resemblance to the common starling, and its flight is similarly fast and direct. It clambers easily through bushes and trees but only shuffles on the ground.
The range of the Bohemian waxwing overlaps those of both the other members of the genus.
The Bohemian waxwing's call is a high trill sirrrr. The Bohemian waxwing has a circumpolar distribution, breeding in northern regions of Eurasia and North America.
This waxwing is migratory with much of the breeding range abandoned as the birds move south for the winter. Migration starts in September in the north of the range, a month or so later farther south. Eurasian birds normally winter from eastern Britain through northern parts of western and central Europe, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and northern China to Japan. North American breeders have a more southeasterly trend, many birds wintering in southeast Canada, with smaller numbers in the north central and northeastern US states. Birds do not usually return to the same wintering sites in successive years. One bird wintering in the Ukraine was found 6,000 km (3,700 mi) to the east in Siberia in the following year.
In some years, this waxwing irrupts south of its normal wintering areas, sometimes in huge numbers. The fruit on which the birds depend in winter varies in abundance from year to year, and in poor years, particularly those following a good crop the previous year, the flocks move farther south until they reach adequate supplies.They will stay until the food runs out and move on again. (wikipedia)
This bird was one of a flock of a dozen feeding on some fruit trees in a quiet estate in the suburbs of Glasnevin, Dublin. Every few years, there is a larger invasion into Ireland when the food supplies in their normal winter range is exhausted prematurely. Flocks of up to 400 Waxwings have been recorded in Ireland. This year seems to be one of those irruptive years for the species.
A sequence of 3 photos illustrating courtship feeding. The actual encounter lasted a couple of minutes and involved food offered, ignored, removed, begged for and finally shared. Playing hard to get!!!
I was poking about in the rocks yesterday afternoon, when this limpet (with another riding on its back) suddenly reared up on its hind legs. I grabbed this shot and got ready to take another, better composed. But the moment passed too quickly.
I spent all afternoon looking for the behaviour to be replicated in other individuals, and saw a few others, all with a 'rider' - doing something similar but none so exaggerated as this one.
What were they up to? Is this common limpet behaviour? Does anyone know?
These sequence of photo's is showing rarely seen 'courtship behaviour', this is the male flapping his wings and bobbing up and down in an attempt to win over the female who was just out of shot, i hope you like these 3 informative images
A pair of painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) chick was begging their mother for the feast which she was carrying in her long neck. It was a quite annoying and notorious scenario as the fish the mother carrying was a bigger one to engulf for the chicks! Yet they continued restlessly begging for the meal. After a long long efforts the left one got the prize but before that they both have regurgitated several times for the sheer size of the meal. I kept sitting there from a distance for quite sometime to document their feeding behaviour. Pics was taken from Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India.
A montage to show you courtship behaviour with Sminthurides nr. penicillifer, as with all Sminthurides species the male and female Springtail perform a courtship ritual. The male which is quite a bit smaller than the female will approach a female and attempt to link its antennae with the female (If the female lets him). The male has specially adapted antennae with long setae on it, it uses these setae to lock its antennae around the females antennae. The female will often carry the male around like this for some time, I'm not sure if this is to exhaust her or if there is some pheromone at play here. The male will then unlock itself and deposit spermatophores that the female will walk over.
In these images the male is the smaller of the linked pair, the females being a lot larger with the distinctive white abdominal and facial band :o)
The females are about 1mm in length and the males 0.6mm long, taken with the MP-E on a 1.4x teleconverter and some with an extra 36mm extension tube added between the lens and teleconverter.
I have included some extra images in the comments :o)