{"id":140257,"date":"2023-07-31T05:16:01","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T11:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=140257"},"modified":"2023-07-31T06:18:59","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T12:18:59","slug":"western-grebes-having-difficulty-handling-slippery-fish-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/31\/western-grebes-having-difficulty-handling-slippery-fish-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Grebes Having Difficulty Handling Slippery Fish – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three days ago at Bear River MBR was yet another day when the back-brooding Western and Clark’s Grebes stole the show. The only thing different from previous, similar days was the difficulty they were having holding onto the fish they were eating themselves or feeding to their youngsters.<\/p>\n

And as you’d expect, the kiddos were having more difficulty than the adults.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is the male of a mated pair of Western Grebes soon after he caught a small fish that was intended for the single chick on his mate’s back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sometimes he gave the fish he caught directly to the youngster but other times he gave it to his mate, who then had the option to eat it herself or give it to the chick. Usually the chick got it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The transfer from adult male to adult female went smoothly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The chick was eager for a meal, maybe a little too eager because soon after he got the fish ‘he’…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

dropped it into the water.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But Mom came to the rescue and retrieved it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Let’s try again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oops. Someone, Mom or Junior, dropped it again. From what I could tell from my photos it could have been either one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mom to the rescue once more.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This time she seemed to be more careful and deliberate while giving it to the chick and he managed to hold on to it and eventually…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

he gobbled it down.<\/p>\n

The chick actually dropped the fish two other times that I haven’t documented in these photos. I haven’t included those shots because they weren’t very good and\/or they didn’t document the fish-fumbling very well. Besides, that would be too many photos and take too much time. I do have a life…<\/p>\n

This particular fish was larger than most fish I saw being fed to chicks this age so maybe the size of the fish had something to do with how many times it was dropped. But no matter their size, all fish are slippery.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: I haven’t included image techs with these photos because they’re nothing to emulate. I had way more shutter speed than I needed (1\/8000) so I should have changed my settings. In the excitement of the moment I just spaced it out.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

As you’d expect, the kiddos were having even more difficulty than the adults. (11 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140265,"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":[338,334,392,366],"tags":[731,1549,49,740,7041,322],"class_list":["post-140257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-western-grebes","tag-aechmophorus-occidentalis","tag-babies","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-chicks","tag-dropping-fish","tag-western-grebe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/western-grebe-5874-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Aud","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140257","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=140257"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140300,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140257\/revisions\/140300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}