{"id":147802,"date":"2023-12-05T05:37:04","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T12:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=147802"},"modified":"2023-12-05T06:08:30","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T13:08:30","slug":"pied-billed-grebe-and-a-fish-whos-in-control-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/05\/pied-billed-grebe-and-a-fish-whos-in-control-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Pied-billed Grebe And A Fish – Who’s In Control Here?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Turning the tables on a predator, at least temporarily.<\/p>\n<p>Last night I was culling some older images when I came across one that made me smile on an otherwise gloomy and depressing day. I’d never posted it before, so I decided to see if my readers enjoy it as much as I do.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"147804\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/05\/pied-billed-grebe-and-a-fish-whos-in-control-here\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,653\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"6.3","credit":"Ron Dudley","camera":"Canon EOS 7D Mark II","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1449833908","copyright":"","focal_length":"700","iso":"640","shutter_speed":"0.0003125","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"pied-billed grebe 0241 ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley-300x218.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-147804 size-full\" title=\"pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"653\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley-768x557.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-ron-dudley-150x109.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That morning at Farmington Bay WMA, whenever one of the many Pied-billed Grebes caught a fish there was a lot of competition for it from other grebes, and even from coots. So when this grebe caught a fish, in order to avoid the other birds he started swimming directly toward me,<span style=\"font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;\"> which they rarely do when they have prey. Usually when they have a fish they turn away from any potential competitor or threat and in this situation, that would include me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But as he came my way, the fish wrapped its body tightly around his bill, which seemed to surprise and confuse him.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"147803\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/05\/pied-billed-grebe-and-a-fish-whos-in-control-here\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"900,720\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{"aperture":"6.3","credit":"Ron Dudley","camera":"Canon EOS 7D Mark II","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1449833908","copyright":"","focal_length":"700","iso":"640","shutter_speed":"0.0003125","title":"","orientation":"1"}\" data-image-title=\"pied-billed grebe 0241 huge crop ron dudley\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley-300x240.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-147803 size-full\" title=\"pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley\" src=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley-768x614.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley-150x120.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley-350x280.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A tighter crop on the bird reveals that his cartoon-ish eyes make him seem befuddled by his predicament, to say the least.<\/p>\n<p>But his confusion didn’t last long. After this shot was taken, he realized that he was getting too close to me so he turned and swam away and then quickly swallowed the fish before any of the other birds could take advantage of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>The look on his face made my day then and it makes my day now.<\/p>\n<p>Ron<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turning the tables on a predator, at least temporarily. (2 photos)<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/05\/pied-billed-grebe-and-a-fish-whos-in-control-here\/\"><span>Continue reading<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147803,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[334,2782,392,359],"tags":[1008,141,251,993,256],"class_list":["post-147802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-pied-billed-grebes","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-fish","tag-pied-billed-grebe","tag-podilymbus-podiceps","tag-prey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-0241-huge-crop-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-CrU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147802"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147851,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147802\/revisions\/147851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}