{"id":69072,"date":"2019-02-08T05:16:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T12:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=69072"},"modified":"2019-02-08T05:23:51","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T12:23:51","slug":"feeding-behaviors-of-pied-billed-grebes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/08\/feeding-behaviors-of-pied-billed-grebes\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeding Behaviors Of Pied-billed Grebes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I rerun a favorite older blog post because few current readers have ever seen it. Today’s post is my 2,526th edition of Feathered Photography and the original version of this one was #6, published on December 26, 2010. For this version I’ve rewritten virtually all of the text, made major formatting changes and updated my copyright watermark.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Pied-billed Grebes have a chip on their shoulder that grows exponentially in size whenever food is involved.<\/p>\n

They’re also full of personality but they’re quite small, relatively common and plainly colored so they don’t get a lot of attention from bird photographers. But over the years they’ve been one of my favorite subjects, largely because of their interesting and belligerent behaviors whenever food is involved.<\/p>\n

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Young carp are their primary food source in many of the ponds I frequent (weather loaches come in a close second) but carp even at this tender age can be more than a mouthful for these very small grebes so they have to struggle to get many of them down the hatch. This grebe was taking a short break after an extended period of trying to swallow the carp.<\/p>\n

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I’ve seen it take several minutes for a grebe to finally be able to swallow a fish this size and I’ve rarely if ever seen one give up on a meal because it was too big, although I suspect they occasionally release prey underwater that they can’t swallow.<\/p>\n

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Fish are slippery, slimy food items and sometimes they get away from the grebe temporarily, although they usually seem to be recaptured. Sometimes the grebes appear to be playing with their food by deliberately releasing it into the water and then grasping it in their bills again. It’s even common for them to toss a fish or other food item into the air in front of them. In the case of this grebe I believe the fish simply slipped away but it was recaptured.<\/p>\n

But believe me, they don’t play with their food when there are other grebes around because Pied-billed Grebes are notorious food thieves (kleptoparasites).<\/p>\n

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When there are other grebes in the vicinity the only order of business is swallowing the food as quickly as possible. Small fish go down easily and fast but a fish this size is a struggle and during the process the possessor of the fish is extremely vulnerable to attack.<\/p>\n

Here the foreground grebe is trying mightily to get the carp down before its trailing competitor makes a move on the fish. If the potential thief gets too close or makes an aggressive move…<\/p>\n

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the result is usually explosive as both birds run across the water, one with the fish it’s trying to protect and the other with robbery on its mind. This behavior is difficult to photograph because these little rascals are so incredibly fast and their direction of travel is unpredictable and erratic.<\/p>\n

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Another grebe attempting to escape its tormentor at blazing speed.<\/p>\n

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All hell breaks out when there are multiple grebes after the fish.<\/p>\n

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Here there are two interesting things going on. The grebe in the background obviously has larceny on its mind and the rightful owner of the fish has actually come out of the water and onto the ice to prevent the pilferage. Grebes rarely come out of the water because their legs are attached so far back on the body that they can’t really even walk. When they try they’re clumsy, inefficient and hilarious to watch.<\/p>\n

Throw in the slippery ice this bird’s walking on and it’s a recipe for disaster for the photographer because spontaneous laughing while trying to shoot with a long lens typically produces soft images. And this one is noticeably soft so that should tell you something…<\/p>\n

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\"\"Pied-billed Grebes are opportunistic feeders and occasionally their diet includes tadpoles and even…<\/p>\n

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frogs. From the distinctive markings on its head this grebe is obviously a juvenile still learning the ropes.<\/p>\n

Fish are swallowed whole but any decent sized prey item with limbs like frogs and crayfish is usually dismembered before swallowing.<\/p>\n

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While attempting to tear legs off of the frog this youngster’s incredible shaking speed was impressive. It simply grabbed legs and then violently shook the frog until amputation occurred.<\/p>\n

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It took roughly five minutes for the grebe to get the frog dismembered to the point the pieces could be swallowed easily. I remember thinking, only half seriously, that it must have taken as much energy to dissect the frog as was gained from the meal.<\/p>\n

Not much fun for the frog but it was a blast for the photographer.<\/p>\n

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\"\"One final look at the size of a meal these tiny grebes are able to put away. The cheeks and even the eyes seem to be bulging with the effort but the fish eventually went down, to my amazement.<\/p>\n

I have one suggestion for bird photographers, especially if you’re interested in behaviors. Don’t ignore Pied-billed Grebes, particularly when they’re feeding. You’ll be sorry…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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I have one suggestion for bird photographers, especially if you’re interested in behaviors. Don’t ignore our pugnacious friends the Pied-billed Grebes, particularly when they’re feeding. You’ll be sorry… (13 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69080,"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":[5,334,2782,392,394,359],"tags":[4441,4439,140,141,151,4440,1626,251,993,256,301,311,1763],"class_list":["post-69072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-pied-billed-grebes","tag-come-out-of-the-water","tag-dismembering-prey","tag-fighting","tag-fish","tag-frog","tag-juvenile-markings","tag-kleptoparasite","tag-pied-billed-grebe","tag-podilymbus-podiceps","tag-prey","tag-tadpole","tag-utah-2","tag-walking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/pied-billed-grebe-4109-ron-dudley-12.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-hY4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69072","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=69072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}