Feb. 21, 2021 - Birds and Berries

This past week, I set up a perch at the house we are renting on St. George Island, Florida. My goal was to attract some of the local birds and photograph them in a nice-looking setting. I put a log (mostly hidden in the photo) on a table, added some Spanish Moss and an interesting stick. For a bit of color, I found some spiky greenery with red and white berries. I posted a photo of the greenery to a plant identification site and found out it is Asparagus Fern (Asparagus aethiopicus). I put bird seed in the hollowed-out log (just below the white berries) and got my camera ready.

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Birds, however, are not paid models, so they don’t necessarily do what I want them to do. They found the berries more attractive than the bird seed. Here’s a female Northern Cardinal crushing a berry with her powerful beak.

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A male Cardinal also came by to pluck a berry off my carefully arranged set up.

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A Gray Catbird gave me a really nice pose holding a berry in its beak.

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My camera can take six frames per second, so I often shoot a burst of photos when interesting behavior is happening. Here’s a sequence of photos showing the Catbird gradually working a berry into its mouth and swallowing it whole.

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The Catbird even ate one of the white berries which I assume isn’t ripe yet.

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This photo caught the berry in mid-air.

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A Northern Mockingbird saw what was happening, chased all the other birds away and proceeded to gulp down all the remaining berries.

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