{"id":42915,"date":"2016-10-20T05:22:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T11:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=42915"},"modified":"2016-10-20T05:22:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T11:22:50","slug":"western-grebe-chick-a-jekyll-and-hyde-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/20\/western-grebe-chick-a-jekyll-and-hyde-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Grebe Chick – A Jekyll And Hyde Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Western Grebes have unusually mercurial personalities and their chicks exemplify that trait, especially when potential food is involved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western-grebe-0080b-ron-dudley\"<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

I photographed this youngster and its parents this past August at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. These chicks always seem hungry and they wait calmly on the surface while their parents are submerged\u00a0in their attempts to catch fish for them. \u00a0For much of the time all seems tranquil and serene on the pond\u00a0but whenever a parent surfaces with food…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western-grebe-0095-ron-dudley\"<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

all hell breaks loose, especially when there are multiple siblings competing for the fish. The chicks rush the parent with beaks agape and emitting an extremely\u00a0loud and\u00a0irritating begging call. The entire mood of the pond changes from peaceful and quiet to frenzied and loud in an instant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western-grebe-0095-big-crop-ron-dudley\"<\/p>\n

Here’s a closer look (large crop) at what the parent sees as the youngsters rush them like miniature torpedoes on the surface.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western-grebe-0100-ron-dudley\"<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This final photo shows us how focused the chicks are in keeping their “eye on the prize”. Sometimes multiple youngsters rush the parent like this and I’ve often thought the adults must feel like they’re about to become pincushions.<\/p>\n

There’s very few situations where birds irritate me but I must admit that after spending hours at Bear River on a beautiful summer morning and listening to the incessant\u00a0begging calls of grebe chicks the entire time it begins to get under my skin.<\/p>\n

I can only imagine how the parents must feel after listening to it hour after hour, day after day, for many weeks.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Western Grebes have unusually mercurial personalities and their chicks exemplify that trait, especially when potential food is involved.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42917,"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":[338,334,392,366],"tags":[731,49,1555,481,141,709,3164,190,322],"class_list":["post-42915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-western-grebes","tag-aechmophorus-occidentalis","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-begging","tag-chick","tag-fish","tag-food","tag-jekyll-and-hyde","tag-juvenile","tag-western-grebe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/western-grebe-0095-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-bab","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42915","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=42915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}