{"id":21332,"date":"2014-01-11T06:42:02","date_gmt":"2014-01-11T13:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=21332"},"modified":"2014-01-11T07:28:53","modified_gmt":"2014-01-11T14:28:53","slug":"western-grebe-back-brooded-chicks-and-whats-the-function-of-that-red-crown-patch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/11\/western-grebe-back-brooded-chicks-and-whats-the-function-of-that-red-crown-patch\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Grebe Back-brooded Chicks (and what’s the function of that red crown patch?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A trio of Western Grebe chicks on the back of a parent can certainly be eye-catching.\u00a0 And in this case\u00a0they piqued my curiosity.<\/p>\n

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\"western<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this family of grebes two summers ago at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.\u00a0 At this stage the chicks are fat, long-bodied and often rambunctious and it’s a wonder that there’s room for all three up there.\u00a0 Here they’re waiting for the other parent to bring them a fish (this image is full frame and a little tight).<\/p>\n

Occasionally I’ve noticed the chicks flash a red patch in the middle of the forehead.\u00a0 Usually it can’t be seen but it’s quite apparent in the middle chick, above.\u00a0 I suspect its purpose is to communicate something to other birds – its parents, its siblings or perhaps both but I’ve never noticed a relationship between it being flashed and a particular behavior.\u00a0 So I did a little research but found very little and what I did find was conflicting.\u00a0 One source said the patch was flashed during begging behavior while another said the “nestlings have a bare yellow head patch that turns crimson when under stress”.\u00a0 Perhaps the competition often involved with begging is stressful and both sources are correct – I just don’t know.<\/p>\n

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

A colored crown patch that is usually hidden but revealed in certain situations as a communication tool is also found in a few other species – some kinglets and kingbirds for example.\u00a0 The Western Kingbird has a red crown patch that it reveals\u00a0during aggressive displays toward other kingbirds during the breeding season or when it’s acting aggressively toward other species (which kingbirds often do, thus the name).\u00a0 This kingbird was threatening a gull perched on a pavilion very near the\u00a0its nest.<\/p>\n

To my knowledge most birds with hidden, colored crown patches that are revealed for display purposes are adults so I was interested that in Western (and presumably Clark’s) Grebes the patches are apparently only present in the chicks.<\/p>\n

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

A trio of Western Grebe chicks on the back of a parent can certainly be eye-catching. And in this case they piqued my curiosity.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21333,"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":[338,334,395,366],"tags":[731,738,49,740,762,1831,1830,322,676],"class_list":["post-21332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-western-grebes","tag-aechmophorus-occidentalis","tag-back-brooding","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-chicks","tag-crown-patch","tag-kinglet","tag-red-patch","tag-western-grebe","tag-western-kingbird"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/western-grebe-6609-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5y4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21332","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=21332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}