{"id":16929,"date":"2013-07-14T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T06:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=16929"},"modified":"2013-07-13T17:10:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T23:10:18","slug":"western-grebe-mated-with-clarks-grebe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/14\/western-grebe-mated-with-clarks-grebe\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Grebe Mated With Clark’s Grebe"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many years Western Grebes and Clark’s Grebes were considered to be color phases of the same species.\u00a0 But when it was discovered that they\u00a0practice preferential mating (a strong tendency to only mate with their “own kind” – Western x Western and Clark’s x Clark’s) they were classified as two distinct species.\u00a0 DNA studies reinforce this decision.<\/p>\n

The two species are similar but easily distinguished from each other by several field marks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Western Grebe<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The eyes of Western Grebes are surrounded by black and their bill is dusky or yellow-green and\u00a0less brightly colored than that of the Clark’s Grebe.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"clark's-grebe-2164\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Clark’s Grebe<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The eyes of Clark’s Grebes are surrounded by white and their bill is bright yellow to orange-yellow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both species are common in my area and I’ve spent years photographing them\u00a0and observing their behaviors.\u00a0 During\u00a0the breeding season it’s relatively easy to single out mated pairs based on a variety of well-known behaviors that occur between\u00a0paired birds.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0of the behaviors that occurs between mates is called “mate feeding”.\u00a0 This is where the female repeatedly\u00a0begs for food from the male while he is on the water’s surface.\u00a0 When the male catches a fish he gives it to her and then almost immediately dives for another.\u00a0 The begging of the female stops while he is under water.<\/p>\n

I observed and photographed the following behavior a few days ago at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

This mated pair consists of\u00a0a male Clark’s Grebe on the right and a female Western Grebe.\u00a0\u00a0 Here the male is delivering a fish to the female…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

which she immediately takes…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

and\u00a0gobbles down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

A few minutes later he delivered another fish.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

And another.\u00a0\u00a0 I watched this happen 5-6 times over the course of about 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

In the years I’ve watched and photographed the behaviors of both species I’ve never before seen a Western Grebe mated to a Clark’s Grebe.\u00a0 Mixed species pairs are uncommon to rare so to have seen this natural but unusual behavior was pretty special for me.<\/p>\n

You just never know what you’re going to see “out there” if you pay attention…<\/p>\n

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

In the years I’ve watched and photographed the behaviors of both species I’ve never before seen a Western Grebe mated to a Clark’s Grebe. Mixed species pairs are uncommon to rare so to have seen this natural but unusual behavior was pretty special for me.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16935,"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":[338,5,334,392,391],"tags":[736,1569,88,1571,1539,1570,322],"class_list":["post-16929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-aechomophorus-clarkii","tag-aechomophorus-occidentalis","tag-clarks-grebe","tag-mate-feeding","tag-mated-pair","tag-preferential-mating","tag-western-grebe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/western-and-clarks-grebe-1475-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4p3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929","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=16929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}