{"id":71762,"date":"2019-05-14T04:19:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T10:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=71762"},"modified":"2019-05-14T05:00:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T11:00:22","slug":"western-grebe-trickery-turnabout-is-fair-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/14\/western-grebe-trickery-turnabout-is-fair-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Grebe Trickery – Turnabout Is Fair Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Personally I think the male of this pair got exactly what he deserved.<\/p>\n

Two days ago at Bear River MBR I documented a Western Grebe behavior I’ve photographed often in the past but this time it included an unusual and amusing twist.<\/p>\n

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During breeding season when eggs are developing within the female of a mated pair her mate feeds her large amounts of fish. Such behavior reinforces their pair bond and provides nourishment to the developing eggs.<\/p>\n

Here we see the larger male on the right offering a small fish to his mate.<\/p>\n

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She reached out to grab it but just as she clamped her bill on the fish…<\/p>\n

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he pulled it away and held it where she could still see it but couldn’t get at it. With her bill open she seemed surprised and confused.<\/p>\n

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Then he swam toward me with it, seeming to taunt her with the fish as she followed him with her eye on the snack that he’d so rudely snatched away from her.<\/p>\n

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But soon he relented and offered it to her again. And this time…<\/p>\n

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he actually allowed her to keep it.<\/p>\n

At this point I figured she’d quickly gobble it down but she had something else in mind. Some might call it revenge.<\/p>\n

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Instead of swallowing the fish she offered it back to him and he seemed eager to accept. She was trolling and he was approaching the bait.<\/p>\n

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She let him get closer as she offered the fish even more enticingly…<\/p>\n

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and just as he was about to take the proffered gift from her she…<\/p>\n

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pulled it away and…<\/p>\n

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swallowed it herself right in front of him.<\/p>\n

Tit for tat. I think he got his comeuppance.<\/p>\n

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold but there’s something to be said for the freshly cooked version too.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Personally I think the male of this pair got exactly what he deserved. Tit for tat.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71764,"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":[731,49,50,4542,141,4541,322],"class_list":["post-71762","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-behavior","tag-deception","tag-fish","tag-revenge","tag-western-grebe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/western-grebe-7500-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-iFs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71762","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=71762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}