eastern kingbird – A Thousand Acres of Silphiums

Eastern Kingbird Nest – Part 5 – The Movie

birds, Nesting Birds of Missouri, wildlife, wildlife photography

I did not take a lot of video footage during my brief time at the nest, but I did get some interesting enough footage to put the following together. Available in 4K on YouTube. Enjoy!

Eastern Kingbird Nest – Part 4 – The Rest

birds, Nesting Birds of Missouri, wildlife, wildlife photography

I processed all of these, so I might as well share them. This is the remainder of the images from the second day I spent photographing the Eastern Kingbird nest at Logger’s Lake.

Eastern Kingbird Nest – Part 3

birds, Nesting Birds of Missouri, wildlife, wildlife photography

A few of my favorites of the Eastern Kingbird nest photographed at Logger’s Lake.

This first batch consists of the begging brood with a parent sitting nearby, usually just after delivering an insect. These guys never stopped their food response. If a parent was in sight, they were begging.

I was surprised to find that the parents would sometimes bring in berries to feed the brood. I do not know which species the berries came from.

Just as automatic as the begging response, nearly every instance of a parent bringing a food item, one of the young would present the adult with a fecal pellet. The parent would usually wait and watch for this event and be ready to grab it as it was being eliminated. It then would take it away from the nest to be disposed, assumedly as part of a predator defense strategy.

A parent decided to meet the other parent on its perch to take the prey item back to the nest itself.

Here the chicks are gaping, not as a begging response to a parent bringing in food, but as a cooling method as the sun is in position to shine down directly on the nest.

Eastern Kingbird Nest – Part One

birds, Nesting Birds of Missouri, wildlife, wildlife photography

A few weeks ago the WGNSS Entomology Group planned on an overnight camping trip to Logger’s Lake in Shannon County, MO. This was a first visit to this location for me and I was very impressed with the floral diversity and the potential for insect diversity as well. Our visit coincided with the June new moon, and with hopes of a typical warm and humid summer’s night, we had high hopes for some great blacklighting for nocturnal insects.

We knew the forecast called for about a 50% chance of rain, but we were hoping for a typical short summer shower, if we saw any precipitation at all. Unfortunately, shortly after my arrival around noon, it began raining and continued for the next five hours. Thankfully, it wasn’t a hard enough rain to keep us out of the field and we took a short and slow insect and botany hike along one of the two trails around the campground area. With the long soaking rain and the drop in temperature accompanying it, we were all in agreement that setting up the blacklight setups would not be worth the effort.

Typical with bird species that are not sexually dimorphic, both sexes of Eastern Kingbird help to provision their brood.

Around dawn the next morning, the skies really opened up and dumped on us for another hour or so. The area received so much rain that the small drainage creek that feeds into the lake, and that we had to cross to get into the campground, looked to be 3-4 feet above the road. So, we weren’t going to be leaving right away. After the rain stopped, everyone had a perfect camping breakfast, courtesy of Karen Bilgere, and then broke down our wet tents and other camping paraphernalia.

I tried to tell my disappointed bug enthusiast friends about “bird nest entomology.” I will share more about this in a future post. Here a parent waits with a dragonfly before heading to the nest to feed the brood.

Afterwards, while taking a stroll around the lake margin, fortune finally smiled upon us, or at least, especially me. We found a perfectly placed Eastern Kingbird nest! Located a few feet above the lake’s surface, the nest afforded wonderful views of the chicks. Additionally, the parents were well used to people at this well-visited campground and did not have a care in the world at the eight or so humans who watched near the lakeshore. Thankfully I brought a bird lens and spent the better part of the next hour watching the busy parents come and go while feeding the hungry brood of four chicks who seemed to never get enough. Then, of course, the skies grew dark and opened up once again. In what seemed less than two minutes, everyone was in their cars and heading back to town.

A dragonfly of this size is quite the meal for this young chick.

The last shot I took of the nest on this day. Within seconds of the literal sheet of rain that was coming at us from across the lake, mom showed up at the nest to be a rain guard.

These were the photos I took on the first day I spent at the nest. This was such a great opportunity and location that the following weekend I drove the nearly three-hours back to do it again. I’ll share more of these in future posts.

Thanks for visiting!
-OZB

Birds of Quivira – East Meets West – Part Two

birds, Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, wildlife

Much like the Meadowlarks, Steve and I observed an abundance of both Eastern and Western Kingbirds. We were surprised by the close proximity of the assumed territories. The typical super-aggression shown by the Eastern Kingbirds did not seem to be delivered to either the Westerns or conspecifics.