{"id":113571,"date":"2022-07-03T05:58:48","date_gmt":"2022-07-03T11:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=113571"},"modified":"2022-07-03T10:10:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-03T16:10:38","slug":"clarks-grebes-feeding-ravenous-chicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/03\/clarks-grebes-feeding-ravenous-chicks\/","title":{"rendered":"Clark’s Grebes Feeding Ravenous Chicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I rerun a favorite older post and this holiday weekend seemed like a good time to do it again. This one was published a little over ten years ago, on June 10, 2012. For this version I’ve changed the title, cleaned up the formatting (among other things, back then I was still putting two spaces between sentences) and edited some of the text.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the grebe world competition starts early.<\/p>\n

One of several Clark’s Grebe behaviors I was able to document at Bear River MBR last week was adults feeding their chicks. One or both youngsters were usually on the back of one parent while the other parent brought in fish for breakfast. They were always small or even tiny fish, to accommodate the very young chicks.<\/p>\n

I had been shooting faster action just prior to this sequence so my settings for the first shot aren’t particularly appropriate but then I quickly adjusted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"clarks-grebe-5490\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The parent bringing in the fish wouldn’t give them directly to the chicks but instead would hand them off to its mate and then that bird would feed the youngsters on its back. Here the parent on the left had just given this small fish to the brooding adult.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"clarks-grebe-5502\"<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

The chick in the water knew it had no chance to get the fish while it was there so it immediately made a beeline for the back of its parent.<\/p>\n

When they’re this size they still struggle to get on board. Sometimes the parent sticks a leg out behind them for the chick to climb up on, but this youngster was on its own and was frantic to get up front where the food would be doled out before its sibling got the fish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"clarks-grebe-5505\"<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I imagine it’s not easy getting up there since they have to work against the grain of the feathers of the adult.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"clarks-grebe-5508\"<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0But this chick gave it the old college try and attempted to get up front before its sibling got the fish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"clarks-grebe-5509\"<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Here the little guy has made it – that’s “him” we can see with his sibling momentarily hidden from view. You’ll notice that his feet are still sticking out above the tail of the parent – that’s how stretched out he was in his attempt to get at the fishy prize.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"clarks-grebe-5512\"<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/8, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Now the question is “who gets the fish?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"clarks-grebe-5534\"<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/8, ISO 640, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

In the end I believe the chick that was originally in the water got it.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the extra effort of the underdog pays off.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the grebe world competition starts early. (7 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[338,334,735,392],"tags":[986,49,88,94,6418,311],"class_list":["post-113571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-clarks-grebes","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-aechmophorus-clarkii","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-clarks-grebe","tag-competition","tag-feeding-fish-to-chicks","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/clarks-grebe-5534.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-txN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113571"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113601,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113571\/revisions\/113601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}