my recent post of a back brooding Clark’s Grebe<\/a> several readers were interested in the subtle differences between Clark’s and Western Grebes when I pointed out that the red eyes of Clark’s Grebes are completely surrounded by white. Notice that in these adult Western Grebes their eyes are surrounded by dark (black) plumage instead of white. I find that to be the most obvious trait to use in the field to distinguish the two species.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/western-grebe-1318-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-grebe-1318-ron-dudley\\"")
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1\/2500, f\/8, 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 in<\/em><\/p>\nWestern Grebes typically lay 3-4 eggs and by the time the\u00a0chicks reach this size\u00a0there usually isn’t enough room on the back of a parent for more than two\u00a0youngsters at the same time. Here the taxi is already\u00a0overloaded with two chicks (notice the long gray\u00a0body of one of them hanging off the back of the parent) so the third youngster is tagging along behind and awaiting an opportunity to climb aboard. Usually the second parent\u00a0is off fishing for its family so a second taxi isn’t available.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/western-grebee-1546-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-grebee-1546-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/500, f\/18, 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 in<\/em><\/p>\nBut 12 minutes later the second parent joined the group and one of\u00a0the\u00a0chicks took advantage of the situation and climbed aboard. If I remember correctly (and I believe I do) soon after this shot was taken the swimming youngster joined one of its siblings on the back of a parent but by then the birds were past me.<\/p>\n
For my tastes\u00a0the distinct and\u00a0very busy reflections in the water pretty much ruin the image aesthetically but I was still happy to get the entire family in the same photo. I believe this\u00a0is the only time I’ve been able to get 5 or more family members in the same\u00a0tight, intimate photos (though I have done it from a much greater distance).<\/p>\n
I’m also pleased to have enough depth of field to get all 5 birds\u00a0acceptably sharp, though I had to adjust my camera settings pretty drastically to accomplish it (f\/18 is mostly unexplored territory for me). I was quite close to these grebes so the image hasn’t been cropped much (this version is 81% of the original image) which means that depth of field was potentially a significant problem.<\/p>\n
Apologies to readers for posting so many older photos lately (even though most of them are new to my blog they’re still “old”…)\u00a0but we’ve had so much dreary weather that it just hasn’t been worth the effort to head into the field. Thankfully the forecast is calling for a few days of clearing so I’m hoping for an improvement in that tiresome weather pattern and maybe even\u00a0some new images soon.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On only one occasion have I been able to include an entire family of 5 or more Western Grebes in the same tight photos. <\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58096,"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":[338,6,334,391,366],"tags":[731,738,49,1318,3949,3386,322],"class_list":["post-58094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","category-western-grebes","tag-aechmophorus-occidentalis","tag-back-brooding","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-clutch-size","tag-depth-of-field-for-multiple-birds","tag-difference-between-clarks-and-western-grebes","tag-western-grebe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/western-grebee-1546-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-f70","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58094","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=58094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}