Tag: pied billed grebe

Common Merganser

This winter I had my first good opportunities with the Common Merganser.  A single female in non-breeding plumage spent several weeks at a pond I frequent and even though the lighting was typically marginal while I was there I still got some shots of her that I like.    500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/500, f/7.1, ISO 640 Notice the serrated bill of this fish eating duck – a very effective tool for holding on to their slippery prey.      500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 This duck gave me a variety of interesting poses in the several days I photographed her but much of the time she was too far away for a quality shot.  This was one of the exceptions.       500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/400, f/7.1, ISO 640   I had a difficult time getting light in the eye while she was preening.  Here’s one image where I succeeded.      500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 I’m convinced that the reason this merganser hung around the pond for as long as it did is because she was an accomplished thief.  The pond had a resident population of about a dozen Pied-billed Grebes and those grebes are very good fishermen.  I seldom saw the merganser actively fishing but whenever a grebe caught a fish this duck was instantly in pursuit in an effort to steal the fish – which is just what she’s doing in this shot.        500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 400 I was often amused by the variety of positions the merganser could hold her crest – from slicked back…

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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…

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Why Grebes Eat Feathers

Grebes, as a group, are known for eating feathers – usually their own.  The obvious question is – why?  There would be virtually no nutritional value in a feather.   Clark’s Grebe eating a feather I’ve photographed four species of grebes – Western Grebe, Clarks Grebe (these two are very similar), Pied-billed Grebe and Eared Grebe.  I’ve been able to document feather eating in all but the Eared Grebe.     Western Grebe parent feeding feather to young Over a period of perhaps a half hour I watched this adult feed several feathers to the chicks, who seemed almost as eager to consume the feathers as they did the fish provided by the parents.      Western Grebe chick reaching for a feather from its parent  Feathers are fed to the young almost immediately after hatching.  In fact, feathers are very often the first item eaten by newly hatched chicks of many grebe species. The purpose(s) of feather eating is unproven but evidence suggests that the behavior has these benefits for the birds.  Some of the ingested feathers form a plug in the pylorus, between the stomach and small intestine, which acts as a strainer to keep fish bones in the stomach long enough to be completely digested.  Most swallowed feathers end up in the stomach lumen, mixed with food.  They eventually (along with any indigestible matter) form pellets that are ejected through the mouth.  The continuous passage of these pellets through the upper digestive system minimizes the buildup of a variety of parasites that are very common there and plague grebes.    Pied-billed…

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