{"id":38879,"date":"2016-04-18T04:47:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T10:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=38879"},"modified":"2016-04-18T04:47:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T10:47:00","slug":"a-chukar-grazing-enthusiastically-on-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/18\/a-chukar-grazing-enthusiastically-on-grass\/","title":{"rendered":"A Chukar Grazing Enthusiastically On Grass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chukars actually eat and digest grass. When you think about it that’s a pretty neat trick.<\/p>\n

But first some background.<\/p>\n

Green plants, especially grasses, are largely composed of cellulose. Cellulose is a rich\u00a0energy source when it can be digested (broken down into individual simple sugars)\u00a0but no animal is capable of producing the digestive\u00a0enzymes required to do so. Animals such as cows, horses, sheep, goats, and termites have symbiotic bacteria in their intestinal tract that digest cellulose for them. Humans can’t digest cellulose but it\u00a0acts as\u00a0a bulking agent for feces and is often referred to as “dietary fiber”.<\/p>\n

Some birds (ostriches, ducks and\u00a0geese for example) also have those symbiotic bacteria in their gut and can digest cellulose indirectly. Two days\u00a0ago this Chukar demonstrated for me\u00a0that same impressive capability.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I spotted the bird as it was basking in the morning sun on the north end of the island. It stood almost motionless for some time but…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

eventually it began to graze on the lush growth of new spring grass in front of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soon the bird moved forward a few inches to where the grass was thicker and began to graze enthusiastically.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whenever its head popped back up where it could be seen the Chukar usually had grass hanging out of its mouth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

As\u00a0it moved further forward into even deeper grass\u00a0I could usually see very little of the bird except when it lifted its head to (apparently) scan for danger. For me it’s just a little bit incongruous to see an upland game bird, or most any other bird except for Canada Geese and some ducks, grazing on grass. However, a\u00a0little\u00a0research on Birds Of North America Online tells me that during certain times of the year green grass provides the bulk of the\u00a0diet of North American Chukars. Some other upland game birds also eat grass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"chukar<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

When this bird finished its meal it walked briskly\u00a0toward me before disappearing into the rocks and vegetation.<\/p>\n

The ability to digest cellulose-laden grass is a major survival strategy because that polysaccharide is the most abundant organic compound on earth. If humans could digest it and found it palatable our hunger problems would largely be over. But we cannot digest it efficiently as is evidenced by the fact that when we eat corn the cellulose-rich husk surrounding the kernel generally “comes out” in the same condition\u00a0it went in.<\/p>\n

And that, I’m sure, is something you didn’t particularly\u00a0want to think about over your morning coffee…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

PS – Notice the bulging right cheek of this bird – it makes me wonder if Chukars have cheek pouches similar to those of chipmunks for the temporary storage of food. Probably not\u00a0but the thought did come into my head…\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Chukars actually eat and digest grass. When you think about it that’s a pretty neat trick.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38883,"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":[3,334,352,392],"tags":[26,31,82,2933,845,311],"class_list":["post-38879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-chukars","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-alectoris-chukar","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-chukar","tag-digest-cellulose","tag-eating-grass","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/chukar-8939-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-a75","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38879","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=38879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}