Western Grebes exhibit two incredibly complex courtship behaviors, the Rushing Ceremony and the Weed Ceremony. I believe the behavior I photographed yesterday morning to be a preliminary to the Weed Ceremony.
Though they can be difficult to see both Clark’s and Western Grebes do have crests.
When it comes to diet Western Grebes are fish specialists but they’re opportunistic enough to take a variety of prey, including crustaceans.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the years watching owls – Great Horned, Burrowing and Short-eared especially and I’ve never seen one eating its own feathers.
For such a large bird Western Grebes can really scoot over the water surface when the need arises.
It isn’t unusual for some bird species to regularly attempt to swallow prey that is too large to go down the hatch. I see American White Pelicans and Great Blue Herons make such attempts fairly often but around here Pied-billed Grebes and Western Grebes seem to be the kings of Gluttony Hill.
There’s just something about back-brooding birds that appeals to the human eye and heart.
I’ve found the rushing behavior of Western Grebes to be one of the more difficult bird photography challenges of all. First of all you have to be there when it happens and I’ve only seen it a handful of times.
Western Grebes and Clark’s Grebes are so similar in plumage patterns and behaviors that until 1985 they were considered to be color phases of the same species – the Western Grebe. In fact they’re similar enough that many observers never even recognize Clark’s Grebes when they see them and assume that they’re the more common Western Grebe.
Two behaviors indicative of pair bonds between mated pairs of Western (or Clark’s) Grebes are “Ratchet pointing” and “Dip-shaking”. The behaviors are often alternated, one after the other. I photographed both of them as they were performed by a pair of Western Grebes three days ago at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
Western Grebes are almost exclusively fish-eaters but yesterday morning at Bear River MBR I photographed one consuming a crayfish.
A trio of Western Grebe chicks on the back of a parent can certainly be eye-catching. And in this case they piqued my curiosity.
At this age Western Grebe chicks are heavy-bodied, small headed, loud, awkward and demanding. They alternately ride on the back of each parent (back brooding) as the other adult rests or hunts for fish to feed to its family. At this stage the youngsters are good swimmers and there’s often not enough room on the parents back for all of the chicks to ride comfortably anyway so the parent uses an interesting strategy to “dump its load” into the water when it needs a break.
