Mastering Bird Photography

Chapter 8

CAPTURING BIRD BEHAVIOR

High-pitched nasal cawing alerts me they are coming—Pinyon Jays!

For weeks I saw only glimpses of these gregarious birds roaming in flocks through the pinyon-juniper woodlands. My goal to capture their distinctive habit of harvesting pine nuts to store as winter food seemed less and less likely, while the nomadic jays continued to elude me. But I found the mother lode of pine nuts—a pinyon pine loaded with ripe cones—so I resolved to wait nearby.

Suddenly, there is so much action I hardly know where to point my lens. Some jays swoop in to snatch nuts on the wing while others cling to the cones, prying nuts out with their bills. And then, as suddenly as they’d arrived, the noisy throng of Pinyon Jays—throats bulging ...