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<\/p>\nFeeding chicks and a variation of “chick-dumping”.<\/p>\n
Lots of locals have been posting photos of Western Grebes at the 4-way pond at Farmington Bay WMA. I figured I should join in the fun, even though the shooting angle there is usually a steep one.<\/p>\n
I’m going to concentrate on their behaviors.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Four days ago, this female (I believe, based on bill shape) Western Grebe was kept incredibly busy feeding very small fish to one of her two chicks. In 26 minutes I estimated that she caught and fed \u224825 tiny fish to this youngster while its sibling showed little if any interest in being fed. I can only guess that the other sibling was the most dominant of the two and had been fed before I got there.<\/p>\n There are huge carp in the 4-way pond but some of the fish that she caught were less than half the size of this one – so small I couldn’t see them in her bill until I cropped in tightly on my photos. Not much per “bite” but she sure didn’t have any trouble catching those slippery little wrigglers.<\/p>\n Even this fish is a little too small to see very much detail unless…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I crop in tightly on the same photo.<\/p>\n In past years one of the most commonly-caught fish in this pond has been the very distinctive Weather Loach<\/a><\/span><\/span> but on this morning I didn’t see a single loach in her bill. I suspect they were all baby carp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I believe this is a different adult and slightly larger youngster – large enough that the adult obviously thought the kiddo was too damn big to be riding on her back. The youngster kept trying to climb aboard and she kept using the same strategy to prevent it from doing so.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n As soon as the chick was nearly on board the adult would rise vertically in the water and perform a wing flap, a very effective way to prevent the youngster from riding on the adult’s back. Both birds did the same things at least three times.<\/p>\n It’s actually a variation of a very well-known strategy that adult Western Grebes use to “dump” their younger and much smaller chicks back into the drink after they’re tired of carrying them on their back (back-brooding). I’ve documented this behavior with younger chicks<\/a><\/span><\/span> in the past, but this is the first time I’ve documented it as a way of preventing large chicks from climbing aboard, rather than dumping smaller chicks after they’re already there.<\/p>\n Here’s what Cornell’s Birds of the World has to say about the behavior:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/western-grebe-0146-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-grebe-0146-big-crop-ron-dudley\\"")
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