Pied-billed Grebe Feeding Behaviors

Pied-billed Grebes are fascinating little birds with a chip on their shoulders.  They are pugnacious, full of personality and quite small.  They don’t seem to get a lot of attention from bird photographers, possibly because of their generally drab colors and because they’re so common.  I really enjoy watching and photographing their behaviors.

I’ve stated here before that “behavior” is a major focus of this blog and if I have images of interesting behaviors that are less than perfect technically I will still post them if they illustrate the behavior well.  There are several in that category in this post. 

 

Grebe with young carp

Carp are the primary food for these birds in many of the ponds I frequent.  Even young fish can make a huge mouthful for these very small grebes. 

 

 

 Swallowing a carp

I’ve seen it take several minutes for a grebe to finally work one of these huge (for them) fish down their throats.  And I’ve yet to see one give up on the meal because it’s too big. 

 

 A slippery meal

Fish are slimy and slippery and sometimes get away from the grebe temporarily, though they always seem to be recaptured. 

 

 

A potential thief in the background 

These birds are very social so there’s nearly always other grebes close by when one catches a meal and some of them will invariably try to steal the prize from its rightful owner.  This can make for some very interesting but challenging encounters for the photographer because the action is usually so explosive.   This carp is too big to swallow quickly so the grebe with the fish is swimming speedily away from the other bird, which is following and waiting for an opportunity.

 

 

  Escaping with the thief on its tail

This and….. 

 

  Running with the prize

this is what nearly always happens in such cases.  The grebe with the meal runs across the water at blazing speed in an effort to escape its tormentor.  A very difficult shot to get for the photographer because it happens so fast.  

 

  Ganging up on the rightful owner

Sometimes several birds will attempt to steal the fish.  I’ve yet to see one lose the fish to the thieves but I’m sure it happens occasionally. 

 

 

  Escaping onto the ice

This is obviously not a quality photo but I decided to include it here because it shows the lengths to which one of these grebes will go to maintain possession of its meal.  Two other grebes tried to steal this fish and to escape them this bird actually hopped up onto the ice.  This is very unusual – Pied-billed Grebes almost never leave the water.  Their legs are placed so far back on their body that they are awkward on solid surfaces to the extreme.  This grebe could barely walk on the ice but managed to down the fish and the thieves were reluctant to come up on the ice.  Very amusing to watch!  

 

 

 Grebe with tadpole

I’ve found these grebes to be opportunistic feeders, taking tadpoles…

 

 

 Grebe with frog

and frogs.  The markings on the face of this bird identify it as a juvenile. 

 

 

 Attempting to dismember the frog

Twice I’ve seen a juvenile eat a frog.  Each time the bird dismembered the prey by furious shaking.  It doesn’t really look much larger than the fish I’ve seen them eat so I wondered if it was because of the bothersome limbs sticking out. 

 

 

Working on the frog

It probably took this grebe over 5 minutes to get the frog dismembered to the point the pieces could be swallowed.  I remember thinking, half seriously, that it must have taken as much energy to “dissect” the frog as was gained from the meal. 

 

 

  A huge mouthful

One final look at the size of a meal these grebes are able to put away.  The cheeks and even the eyes seem to be bulging with the effort, but the fish eventually went down – to my amazement! 

Ron