{"id":157718,"date":"2024-04-24T04:57:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T10:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=157718"},"modified":"2024-04-24T04:57:02","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T10:57:02","slug":"the-bizarre-biology-of-the-eared-grebe-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/24\/the-bizarre-biology-of-the-eared-grebe-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bizarre Biology Of The Eared Grebe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I rerun a favorite older post. This one was originally published back in December of 2016. I chose to repost it because the biologist in me gravitates toward the highly unusual biology of this little grebe and I believe that many of my readers who have never seen this post will find it interesting. For this version I’ve edited the text and tweaked the formatting.<\/em><\/p>\n

The little Eared Grebe is one of the most biologically interesting bird species I’m aware of.<\/p>\n

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1\/500, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 II Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

As common as they are in northern Utah during certain times of the year, I typically can’t get close to Eared Grebes. An exception occurred a few years ago when I found several of them feeding on an insect hatch on Glover Pond near Farmington Bay. They were scurrying around on the pond as they snatched insects off the surface and occasionally one would pause and look at me with an intensely scarlet eye.<\/p>\n

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1\/800, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 II Extender, not baited, set up or called in <\/em><\/p>\n

I actually preferred them a little further away so I could get their entire reflection in frame on the mirror-like surface of the water.<\/p>\n

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The Great Salt Lake is one of only two primary staging areas of Eared Grebes in North America (the other is Mono Lake, CA). This photo, taken in early May along the causeway to Antelope Island, shows mind-boggling numbers of grebes from the shoreline to roughly a half mile out on the lake. And there were just as many grebes for much of the 7 mile length of the causeway. At times it’s estimated that there are 2.5 million Eared Grebes on the lake, which is over half of the entire North American population of Eared Grebes.<\/p>\n

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The physiological changes in body composition of Eared Grebes during their migration cycle\u00a0are truly bizarre. Consider the following:<\/p>\n