Mating American Avocets
I have to appologize for the quality of some of these pictures. They are cros of pictures taken with a 600mm telephoto lens of birds that were 50+ yards away. At this level of magnification every error is focus is magnified as well. But in the interest of completeness I have all photos of the sequence.
These pictures were taken at Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge in the Desert of the Great Salt Lake. I noticed some behavior between these two that appeared structured in some. Started shooting and got this sequence. Would have been better as a movie. The male did a little dance first on one side of the female then on the other. He did this several time the hopped up and they mated. Maybe 10 seconds. Then they did another little dance together and went their separate ways.
