1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called <\/em><\/p>\nSuddenly from out of nowhere appeared the creature from the black lagoon – another grebe intent on stealing the fish.\u00a0From elsewhere on the pond the\u00a0second grebe had seen the first one with the fish and then dived for a sneak-attack from the depths.<\/p>\n
I’m sure the grebe with the fish had no idea the second one was coming (and of course neither did I). I just happened to\u00a0snap my shutter when it first became visible and before either bird could react to the situation. Though we can’t see much of the fish (only its head) the pilfering grebe appears to be in perfect position to clamp its beak on the tail of the\u00a0fish.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-9364-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"pied-billed-grebe-9364-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called <\/em><\/p>\nBut the rightful owner of the fish jerked it away just in time to prevent the theft…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-9365-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"pied-billed-grebe-9365-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called <\/em><\/p>\nand get the hell out of Dodge with it…<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-9366-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"pied-billed-grebe-9366-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called <\/em><\/p>\nwhich left\u00a0the\u00a0potential thief behind to ponder what happened to its intended meal.<\/p>\n
At this point the wannabe thief gave up and the first grebe swam away and swallowed the fish but not before…<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-9395-ron-dudley-1.jpg\" "\\"pied-billed-grebe-9395-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called <\/em><\/p>\nthe now\u00a0deceased fish performed a vertical tail-stand in the water as its swan song.<\/p>\n
I can’t even begin to tell you how surprised I was by this behavior, especially considering the fact that I didn’t even\u00a0know it had occurred until I arrived home and looked at the photos on my computer screen. This flurry of activity happened so incredibly fast that (believe it or not) I didn’t even know\u00a0there was a second grebe involved until I\u00a0arrived home. Photographers know that when the\u00a0camera shutter moves across our screen our view of the action is blocked for an instant so that didn’t help but I was still dumbfounded that I had missed so much of what really went down.<\/p>\n
Have I ever mentioned that I love bird behaviors?<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
Note: I had another surprise with this encounter. Over the years I’ve photographed many hundreds of fish being captured and eaten by birds at Farmington and in the past every one of those fish appeared to be either a young carp or a weather loach. But to my eye this fish doesn’t appear to be either a carp or a loach. It may be a catfish but since I’m no ichthyologist I’m not sure what it is.<\/em><\/p>\nThere’s always something new “out there” if you pay attention…<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I knew Pied-billed Grebes were thieves but until yesterday I had no idea how incredibly sneaky their thievery can be. They’re notorious and highly skilled kleptoparasites (food-stealers) but this particular bird has refined the art of theft to the point of mastery and beyond.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54915,"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":[6,334,392,394,359],"tags":[74,1008,1626,3760,251,993,3762,2153,3761,320,3759],"class_list":["post-54910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-pied-billed-grebes","tag-carp","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-kleptoparasite","tag-mystery-fish","tag-pied-billed-grebe","tag-podilymbus-podiceps","tag-sneak-attack","tag-stealing-fish","tag-thief","tag-weather-loach","tag-what-kind-of-fish"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/pied-billed-grebe-9365-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-ehE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54910","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=54910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164784,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54910\/revisions\/164784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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