I knew Pied-billed Grebes were thieves but until yesterday I had no idea how incredibly sneaky their thievery can be. They’re notorious and highly skilled kleptoparasites (food-stealers) but this particular bird has refined the art of theft to the point of mastery and beyond.
One of the skills that can be of immense value to the bird photographer (and of interest to birders of every persuasion) is the ability to predict when they might take off.
There’s more negative fallout caused by baiting raptors than many are aware of and some of it affects our fellow photographers who don’t bait and never have. I’ve been stewing about this for a while now so I finally had to get it off my chest.
For a variety of reasons this might have been my most rewarding session ever with a family of Western Grebes and I actually had five of them to play with.
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