{"id":8230,"date":"2012-10-07T01:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T07:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=8230"},"modified":"2012-10-07T05:11:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T11:11:00","slug":"western-grebes-a-bizarre-behavior-finally-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/07\/western-grebes-a-bizarre-behavior-finally-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Grebes: A Bizarre Behavior Finally Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time observing Western Grebes (or their close relatives, Clark’s Grebes) has undoubtedly observed\u00a0this curious behavior multiple times.<\/p>\n

But before I continue, a few words of explanation are in order.\u00a0 Grebes are unique to most other\u00a0water birds in two ways that are related to this behavior:\u00a01.)\u00a0their legs are attached to their bodies at the rear, rather than underneath and 2.)\u00a0the toes of grebes are lobed instead of webbed.<\/p>\n

Having legs attached at the rear\u00a0allows for efficient swimming but causes\u00a0extreme clumsiness while walking – they rarely venture on to land, but when they do they often fall down\u00a0after just a few steps.\u00a0 This leg attachment position is so distinctive of grebes\u00a0that the genus name of four of the\u00a0North American grebe species is Podiceps<\/em> (from “podicis” meaning anus or vent\u00a0and\u00a0“pes” meaning foot) – in other words, “anus foot”.\u00a0\u00a0 (and yes, I’m having a hard time resisting a joke line or two with that phrase…)<\/p>\n

Recent experimental work with grebes has demonstrated that the lobes on the toes function much like the hydrofoil blades of a propeller.<\/p>\n

Ok, with that background, on to this strange behavioral quirk\u00a0of the Western Grebe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

Without warning, and for no apparent reason, they\u00a0stick one of\u00a0their legs out\u00a0behind them.\u00a0 With those unusual feet it can look pretty silly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

Sometimes they’ll do a simultaneous wing stretch, but rarely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

Occasionally they’ll hold the foot high in the air for quite a while.\u00a0\u00a0 That can look even sillier.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

Even the chicks do it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

But\u00a0typically they only leave the foot behind them for a few seconds,\u00a0usually shaking it as you can see here from the water droplets flying through the air and hitting the water…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

and then they either tuck the leg and foot under a wing (most common)\u00a0or lay them on top of their back.\u00a0 Obviously this contortionist maneuver would be impossible if the legs were attached in the “normal” position, under the body.<\/p>\n

Over the years I’ve seen grebes do this many hundreds of times and never understood it, so recently I did some research.\u00a0 It turns out that this behavior helps to prevent body heat from being lost to the water.\u00a0 They stick the foot back behind them, shake the water off, then place it under the wing to warm it and prevent further heat loss.\u00a0 Sometimes on sunny days they leave the foot on their back to absorb the\u00a0heat from the sun.<\/p>\n

Bird behaviorists even have a name for this\u00a0neat\u00a0little\u00a0maneuver\u00a0– it’s called “foot-shipping<\/strong>“. (another definition of shipping is “to put in place for use”).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s a look at a grebe “shipping” its foot.\u00a0 The wing is raised, the foot and leg come over the body from behind…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

and are neatly tucked under the wing before it returns to its normal position.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"western<\/p>\n

And literally a split-second later you’d never know that the leg and foot are under the wing.<\/p>\n

This all\u00a0happens very fast.\u00a0\u00a0I doubt most folks notice the foot going under the wing and once it’s there you’d simply assume both legs are\u00a0below and behind the bird again.\u00a0\u00a0And they’re\u00a0very good at\u00a0paddling with only one foot.<\/p>\n

I’m delighted to finally<\/em> learn the answer to this little puzzle that has befuddled me for\u00a0so long\u00a0and I thought some of you might be interested.<\/p>\n

I always assumed it was some form of bizarre\u00a0leg stretch.\u00a0 As I’ve stated here before, making assumptions can sure be\u00a0non-productive…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time observing Western Grebes (or their close relatives, Clark’s Grebes) has undoubtedly observed\u00a0this curious behavior multiple times. But before I continue, a few words of explanation are in order.\u00a0 Grebes are unique to most other\u00a0water birds in two ways that are related to this behavior:\u00a01.)\u00a0their legs are attached to their bodies at the rear, rather than underneath and 2.)\u00a0the toes of grebes are lobed instead of webbed. Having legs attached at the rear\u00a0allows for efficient swimming but causes\u00a0extreme clumsiness while walking – they rarely venture on to land, but when they do they often fall down\u00a0after just a few steps.\u00a0 This leg attachment position is so distinctive of grebes\u00a0that the genus name of four of the\u00a0North American grebe species is Podiceps (from “podicis” meaning anus or vent\u00a0and\u00a0“pes” meaning foot) – in other words, “anus foot”.\u00a0\u00a0 (and yes, I’m having a hard time resisting a joke line or two with that phrase…) Recent experimental work with grebes has demonstrated that the lobes on the toes function much like the hydrofoil blades of a propeller. Ok, with that background, on to this strange behavioral quirk\u00a0of the Western Grebe.   Without warning, and for no apparent reason, they\u00a0stick one of\u00a0their legs out\u00a0behind them.\u00a0 With those unusual feet it can look pretty silly.     Sometimes they’ll do a simultaneous wing stretch, but rarely.     Occasionally they’ll hold the foot high in the air for quite a while.\u00a0\u00a0 That can look even sillier.     Even the chicks do it….<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,395,366],"tags":[731,50,481,883,882,190,879,878,884,880,881,322],"class_list":["post-8230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-miscellaneous","category-western-grebes","tag-aechmophorus-occidentalis","tag-behavior","tag-chick","tag-foot-shipping","tag-heat-loss","tag-juvenile","tag-leg-attachment","tag-leg-position","tag-leg-stretch","tag-lobed-feet","tag-podiceps","tag-western-grebe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-28K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8230","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=8230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}