One of the most exciting moments for spring birders at Malheur: your first annual sighting of Bobolinks. In May we missed them entirely. This population in Harney County may be the most westerly breeding Bobolink population on earth. So we made them a priority on our first day of the June trip. And at P Ranch they showed off and taught us a bit about bobolinkage.
Look closely at this sequence of two males facing one another. The display of the velvety golden crown is clearly a masculine dominance performance. The male showing off his nape ended up with the female Bobolink flying after him. Both males gave us some song.
Two days later we were in Diamond Canyon and with help from our own Bob we found the Bobolinks there, as well:
Advertisements
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.
By: africanbirding on June 18, 2019
at 1:22 pm