One of the smaller waterfowl that we see in my neck of the woods, at least during the warmer months, is the pied-billed grebe. They typically can be found on lakes and ponds, especially ones with plenty of
vegetation.
They eat a variety of different types of prey from aquatic insects to crustaceans, fish and frogs.
They catch their food by diving under the water, where they are excellent swimmers. In fact when there are predators around they prefer to sink under the water and swim away rather then taking flight.
Although they are commonly confused as ducks grebes do not have webbed feet like ducks do. Their feet have long lobbed toes which are connected by webbing in the middle. This pied-billed grebe that I photographed at
Crex Meadows back in September of 2008 was kind enough to give me a good view of one of his feet.
One of the smaller waterfowl that we see in my neck of the woods, at least during the warmer months, is the pied-billed grebe. They typically can be found on lakes and ponds, especially ones with plenty of vegetation.
They eat a variety of different types of prey from aquatic insects to crustaceans, fish and frogs. They catch their food by diving under the water, where they are excellent swimmers. In fact when there are predators around they prefer to sink under the water and swim away rather then taking flight.
Although they are commonly confused as ducks grebes do not have webbed feet like ducks do. Their feet have long lobbed toes which are connected by webbing in the middle. This pied-billed grebe that I photographed at Crex Meadows back in September of 2008 was kind enough to give me a good view of one of his feet.
7 comments:
I love that first image. What a lovely portrait it is.
Great series of photos! Such a cute little bird.
Oh my - what an agile bird. He's a pretty little thing!
I think he/she might have been waving at you! hehehe
Such a cute lil guy/gal.
Swing by my page for a tour w/ Gus Gus & Daisy - Ducks on my parent's farm.
Happy WW!
An interesting bird and great photos - especially the second one!
Geeeze you are clever, you even get Grebes to perform tricks for you! Wonderful shots.
cute little duck swimming in a cool water.
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