Bon appetit, the capture

Spring is crocuses.

And robins.

Someone left behind a half an apple. Change of menu. The robin picked up apple chunk and shook it around until a piece of apple separated. Ate that. Repeated same operation until it had eaten all the fruit it wanted to.

Back to protein.

The only way to get worming pictures is to wait patiently. Watch body language. Point, lunge, yank. Sometimes the robin comes up with nothing, but when there's a connect it can get very funny. Spurt shooting is necessary, because the action happens in seconds. All worms captured were eaten, sometimes after a slight pause, then down the hatch, usually two seconds for monster worms to disappear down the hatch.

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Space

One big field. Space for everyone. Lots of worms to be found......

except not in the eyes of one male. Face-off time. Two males. Not enough space for both of them.

Nothing gentle about this confrontation.

Territory marked off. Time to get back to worming.

I've seen face-offs before, but have not been in the right place to really get pictures. This time luck was on my side. It's always two males having a go at it.

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More spring

Spring arrival today, a kinglet. I wouldn't say I saw one unless I could get a picture. Hard to get. Grub hunting, nit picking in the brush. I've never before seen a kinglet in March. Happy.

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Also from Friday

It was warm, very warm for March.

A favorite sign of spring, the eastern phoebe.

And then there was the silly........ usually there are geese or cormorants on this rock. Yesterday the rock was usurped by a fashion shoot, Lady of the Lake?

Actually, this gave me a good idea. I'd like to improve my wardrobe. How expensive would it be to design of tinfoil dress?

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Hormones

Some days are just plain goofy. That's how today ran itself out. First the mallards.

Spring is in the air. Hormones. Hootchy kootchy time. (This is a family blog site or this would be called something else.) Male- female.

Male attracted to female. Pretty pretty.

Oh, ...where did she disappear to?

Oh boy!!! "Hootchy kootchy", the underwater variety.

This goes on for a while.

Does female need scuba gear?

She's still with us. Not complaining.

This looks like fun. Underwater "hootchy kootchy".

Finally surfacing.

That was good. Wiggle tail. Looking pleased with the whole affair.

As for the male, whooppeee ! That was fun.

That was really WHAM BANG fun!!!

I'm not making this up, you know.

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Two seconds

There's specific body language when the robin's on the hunt, stare ahead then lunge.....

Yank! I know it's soft focus. Iwas focusing on the worm. Shorty.

Once captured a pause is possible. Worm is not going to run away.

Now comes the fun part. The camera records the time each shot is taken. This worm went down the hatch in two seconds. That's less time than it takes to really look at the pictures.

Gone. Down the hatch. Two seconds!

Later in the afternoon I saw this robin take a peck at the carrot, but a robin doesn't have what it takes to eat a carrot, shredded carrot maybe, but a not whole carrot.

Being in a robin/worm frame of mind, for a second I imagined this pooch to also be worming.

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