{"id":27213,"date":"2014-10-13T06:16:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T12:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=27213"},"modified":"2014-10-13T06:32:34","modified_gmt":"2014-10-13T12:32:34","slug":"pied-billed-grebe-an-entertaining-diving-technique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/13\/pied-billed-grebe-an-entertaining-diving-technique\/","title":{"rendered":"Pied-billed Grebe – An Entertaining Diving Technique"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pied-billed Grebes use several different diving techniques but the one called “gradual sinking” is certainly the most entertaining to watch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied-billed<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This grebe kept a wary eye on me as I pulled up to its pond in my pickup five days ago at Farmington Bay.\u00a0 Normally I’d have passed this bird by because the setting isn’t an attractive one but I’ve only rarely been able to photograph the gradual sinking technique of the species and because the floating pond weed provided an obstacle to the bird simply swimming further away from me on the surface I wondered if it might perform for me this time.\u00a0 It did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied-billed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

When these birds are swimming on the surface, buoyancy is provided by air trapped between feathers and body and by air contained in their internal air sacs.\u00a0 Just prior to diving they flatten their feathers against the body which\u00a0releases air trapped in their plumage and they also expel air from their air sacs.\u00a0\u00a0 At that point their increased\u00a0specific gravity allows them to more\u00a0easily\u00a0use\u00a0any of their several diving techniques without having to tap energy reserves to dive and then remain submerged.\u00a0 In this instance the grebe chose to employ “gradual sinking” as its diving technique.<\/p>\n

You can see that the\u00a0grebe is static in the water and not moving forward as it begins to sink.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied-billed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0In my experience they always bend their body where the neck meets the trunk which allows the weight of the head, neck and rear of the body to more efficiently “push” the bird down into the water.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied-billed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even though there is no forward motion,\u00a0the disappearing head\u00a0always reminds me of\u00a0the periscope of a diving submarine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied-billed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The bill and tail disappear last.<\/p>\n

They sometimes give themselves an assist at sinking with their feet.\u00a0 Their legs and\u00a0feet are placed far back on their body and their unique anatomy allows them incredible flexibility (they can move their feet above, below or level with their body and can rotate them 90 degrees).\u00a0 Here you see the “water boils” as the bird uses its feet to push up against the water and\u00a0force its body down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied-billed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

And then the grebe disappeared beneath the surface.\u00a0 I never saw it again.<\/p>\n

These birds can sink to any desired depth with varying amounts of body, neck and head above the surface and hold that position for some time.\u00a0 Several times I’ve seen them hold a partially submerged position and simply watch\u00a0me, apparently in an effort to judge whether or not I’m a threat.<\/p>\n

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

Pied-billed Grebes use several different diving techniques but the one called “gradual sinking” is certainly the most entertaining to watch.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27217,"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":[334,395,359],"tags":[1984,1239,1008,2266,251,993],"class_list":["post-27213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-pied-billed-grebes","tag-air-sacs","tag-diving","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-gradual-sinking","tag-pied-billed-grebe","tag-podilymbus-podiceps"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/pied-billed-grebe-8707-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-74V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27213","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=27213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}