This young couple have had a very busy day on the nest. Several hours of copulation, nest building and sharing time together squeezed into just a few minutes. Birds reproduce using their cloaca; this occurs during a "cloacal kiss" in most birds. Birds that mate using this method touch their cloacae together, in some species for only a few seconds, sufficient time for sperm to be transferred from the male to the female.
Courtesy of Latvian Fund for Nature
