{"id":9466,"date":"2012-11-25T15:56:30","date_gmt":"2012-11-25T22:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=9466"},"modified":"2012-11-26T19:33:40","modified_gmt":"2012-11-27T02:33:40","slug":"a-gluttonous-pied-billed-grebe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/25\/a-gluttonous-pied-billed-grebe\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gluttonous Pied-billed Grebe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pied-billed Grebes are opportunistic feeders so they’re not very fussy about what they eat,\u00a0but they do\u00a0seem particularly fond of crayfish, fish and frogs (including tadpoles).\u00a0 Before consuming crayfish and frogs (both are often too large to swallow whole) they rip them apart in an incredibly rapid shaking frenzy that tears off limbs and pieces before they’re swallowed (something I’ve documented here<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0with a frog).\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> They have very strong jaw muscles and before swallowing fish they repeatedly pinch them with their beak, which kills them by\u00a0damaging their\u00a0internal organs.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Occasionally, when choosing prey, their eyes are bigger than their stomachs – as you’re about to see.\u00a0 (all images are presented in the order that they occurred)<\/p>\n

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\"pied<\/p>\n

\u00a0All images presented in this post had the following techs: f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, shutter speed ranged from 1\/2000 to 1\/1250<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Last winter, I noticed this grebe just after it surfaced with a fish.\u00a0\u00a0 A very large\u00a0 <\/em>fish, at least relative to the size of the\u00a0bird who must now swallow it.\u00a0 (I’ve never seen one tear a fish into smaller pieces before eating it).<\/p>\n

As a side-note, I liked the “extra eye” in the reflection at the bottom of the frame.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied-billed<\/p>\n

I thought this image would give the viewer a good sense for the size of the fish – especially its width!<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

But the poor bird didn’t have any time at all to get the meal down before other grebes rushed in to try to steal the fish.\u00a0\u00a0 The competition at times like this is intense, \u00a0with the rightful owners of the prize skittering across the water at high speed\u00a0and the potential\u00a0 thieves in hot pursuit.\u00a0 When the prey\u00a0is small, these birds swallow their meal underwater – something they can’t do with larger items.\u00a0 So\u00a0 there’s always some excitement in a situation like this.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

During a\u00a0brief lull in the chase the grebe tries to\u00a0hurriedly swallow the fish but it’s just too big to go down quickly, if at all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

This particular\u00a0grebe is an accomplished multitasker – attempting to swallow the prize at the same time it’s furiously swimming away from the other birds giving chase.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

I like the look of frustration this view provides.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

Still trying to avoid competitors…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

and get the meal down the hatch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

Finally, things settled down a bit.\u00a0 I wondered at the time if all the frenzied activity, combined with the huge fish stuffed down its gullet, might have made it difficult to breathe and winded the bird a little.<\/p>\n

I don’t believe the grebe was ever able to get the\u00a0meal down.\u00a0\u00a0 It dived\u00a0with the fish but came up without it and I doubt it could swallow\u00a0this one underwater.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"pied<\/p>\n

But just a few minutes later, another grebe (possibly the same one) came up with another fish and the excitement began all over again.<\/p>\n

Fun little birds!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

Pied-billed Grebes are opportunistic feeders so they’re not very fussy about what they eat,\u00a0but they do\u00a0seem particularly fond of crayfish, fish and frogs (including tadpoles).\u00a0 Before consuming crayfish and frogs (both are often too large to swallow whole) they rip them apart in an incredibly rapid shaking frenzy that tears off limbs and pieces before they’re swallowed (something I’ve documented here\u00a0with a frog).\u00a0\u00a0 They have very strong jaw muscles and before swallowing fish they repeatedly pinch them with their beak, which kills them by\u00a0damaging their\u00a0internal organs.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Occasionally, when choosing prey, their eyes are bigger than their stomachs – as you’re about to see.\u00a0 (all images are presented in the order that they occurred)   \u00a0All images presented in this post had the following techs: f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, shutter speed ranged from 1\/2000 to 1\/1250 Last winter, I noticed this grebe just after it surfaced with a fish.\u00a0\u00a0 A very large\u00a0 fish, at least relative to the size of the\u00a0bird who must now swallow it.\u00a0 (I’ve never seen one tear a fish into smaller pieces before eating it). As a side-note, I liked the “extra eye” in the reflection at the bottom of the frame.   I thought this image would give the viewer a good sense for the size of the fish – especially its width!     But the poor bird didn’t have any time at all to get the meal down before other grebes rushed in to try to steal the fish.\u00a0\u00a0 The competition at times like this is…<\/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":[4,334,392,359],"tags":[94,136,141,251,993],"class_list":["post-9466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-behaviors","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-pied-billed-grebes","tag-competition","tag-feeding","tag-fish","tag-pied-billed-grebe","tag-podilymbus-podiceps"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-2sG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9466","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=9466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}