{"id":959,"date":"2014-09-21T14:08:14","date_gmt":"2014-09-21T21:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ocbirds.com\/?p=959"},"modified":"2014-10-04T13:24:40","modified_gmt":"2014-10-04T20:24:40","slug":"pin-tailed-whydah-male-on-the-barano-trail-mission-viejo-ca-september-21-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/?p=959","title":{"rendered":"Pin-tailed Whydah (male) on the Barano Trail, Mission Viejo, CA September 21, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Pin-tailed<\/a>
\nA male Pin-tailed Whydah in search of seed \/ food on the Barano Trail.\u00a0 Photo taken on September 21, 2014 around 10:50 a.m.<\/div>\n
\"Pin-tailed<\/a>
\nA male Pin-tailed Whydah overlooks a section of the Barano Trail in Mission Viejo, CA on September 21, 2014<\/div>\n
\"Pin-tailed<\/a>
\nA male Pin-tailed Whydah appears to be performing a courtship display in flight on the Barano Trail, Mission Viejo, CA on September 21, 2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0At around 10 a.m.,<\/span> after being on this local trail for about an hour, my peripheral vision was able to briefly catch a very narrow and lengthy tailed species in flight.\u00a0 I had hoped for its return as from experience I knew this was either a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher or a male Pin-tailed Whydah.\u00a0 The Scissor-tailed would be an uncommon, non exotic and a domestic find while the Whydah would be a bit more common and an exotic (caged release and originally from Africa – it did not fly here – i.e. migrate).\u00a0 However, either would be fascinating to watch after this brief encounter.<\/p>\n

A 20 minute wait proved beneficial (not exceptional as with a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher) as the earlier sighting was in fact the male Pin-tailed Whydah<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0 The flying pattern of this male Whydah was rather cumbersome and clunky to say the least.\u00a0 It was neither swift nor agile.\u00a0 As it landed atop of a sycamore tree waiting for insects, a unique dodging pattern occurred moments later as it was thrust itself back and forth against a barren branch plucking insects (see in flight photograph below) one by one.<\/p>\n

I tracked the bird for about an hour and overtime the male eventually came within close proximity. He landed on the asphalt trail as I stood nearby in the shadows firing off a series of photographs with the 5D Mark III in Silent shutter mode and the Canon 400mm L 5.6 with a 1.4 extender.<\/p>\n

I have been on this trail numerous times weekly over the past 3 years and this is the first Pin-tailed Whydah.\u00a0 It’s presence apparently agitated a nearby Black Phoebe that I witnessed flying back and forth under a nearby rooftop.\u00a0 Three Northern Mockingbirds and several Western-scrub Jays also appeared to be bothered by its appearance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u00a0At around 10 a.m., after being on this local trail for about an hour, my peripheral vision was able to briefly catch a very narrow and lengthy tailed species in flight.\u00a0 I had hoped for its return as from … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oc-birding-locales","category-perching-birds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Rhss-ft","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=959"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbirds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}