A Song of Three Birds: Part I

This is the first of three special episodes that I will be releasing in the next two weeks. These episodes are from my performance and collaboration with composer Jack McGaughey. They will cover three totally new and different birds that I’ve never talked about before. In each episode, we will learn about a bird and then listen to a piece of music inspired by that bird. This suite, Feathered Friends of Fern Ridge, was written by Jack, and I’m really excited to talk about the birds and hear his music. I hope you enjoy it! The first episode is all about the Western Grebe, so let's learn all about this awesome bird. 

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Transcript

Intoduction

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Bird of the Day. My name is Sam Rogers, and I'm a 13-year-old birder from Eugene, Oregon. This is an informative, entertaining podcast about anything and everything birds. This episode is a special episode. This is the first of three special episodes that I will be releasing rapid fire over the next two weeks. These episodes are from my performance and collaboration with Jack McGahee. These three episodes will cover three totally new and totally different birds that I've never talked about before. In each episode, we will learn about a bird and then listen to a piece of music inspired by that bird. This suite, Feathered Friends of Fern Ridge, was written by Jack McGahee, and I'm really excited to talk about the birds and hear his music. I hope you enjoy it. The first episode is all about the Western Grebe, so let's learn all about this awesome bird. Imagine you are at a large wetland preserve, watching hundreds of birds flying around and swimming in the lake. A flock of pelicans is fishing, all dipping their heads up and down in unison. Some ruddy ducks are displaying, the males sticking up their tails and flashing their blue bills. Then you notice another pair of birds. These have a black upperside and a white underside, with a long neck and a long yellow bill. The pair is sitting in the water, with their heads stretched out. Suddenly they start running across the water together. Both birds are frantically pattering their feet as they dash across the lake, before falling back down together after a few feet. These would be western grebes, and this rushing ceremony is a very famous behavior of theirs. But we'll get more into that later. For now, let's learn about the Western Grebe at first glance.

Western Grebe At A Glance

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The Western Grebe is a medium-sized black and white duck-shaped bird. I want to make it clear that this is not a duck. Greebes are actually very different from ducks, but they do look sort of similar. Greebes are in the family Podisipididae, while ducks are in the family Anatidae. In fact, greebes are more closely related to birds like flamingos and gulls than to ducks. The western grebe is a little bigger than your average mallard, but very different in shape and structure, with a more stretched out anatomy, with a long bill, neck, and legs. From beak to tail it's about two feet or half a meter. Now, if you happen to find one of these birds, pay special attention to the area of feathers around the eye. On a western grebe, they're black or dark grey, but on the very similar Clark's grebe, they're white. Clark's grebes also normally have a brighter yellow bill and more white on the flanks. These two can be very, very hard to tell apart, and some birds are best left unidentified. Western grebes are not all that vocal, but they do make some high pitched croaking and gurgling sounds, especially during the breeding season. Here is a Western Grebe in California. Sometimes they'll make a variation of this call, but that's the general idea. Western Greebes can be found across the western half of the US, hence the name, and are almost exclusively found on or near bodies of water. In fact, Greebes can't really even walk. Western Grebes' legs are so far back on their body that they have to essentially waddle upright like a penguin. Of course, this also makes them some of the best swimming birds in the world. These far back propeller-like feet are super efficient for moving around underwater, which helps Greebes catch fish much easier. Another fun fact, greebes actually don't have webbed feet. Instead, they have lobed feet. Essentially, they have floppy fins coming out of their toes. They work the same as webbed feet do, but they look very different. You can find western grebes on reservoirs, lakes, and marshy areas, where they nest in summer. In winter, however, almost all the western grebes migrate to the ocean. I say almost because there is a separate population on the Mexican plateau, and these birds don't migrate. That was all about the range, plumage, and sounds of the Western Grebe. Now its behavior.

Western Grebe Behavior, Courtship, and Breeding

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Like many other grebes, Western Grebes eat fish. Or if you're especially scientific, you would say they are pisciverous. They don't have any strong preferences when it comes to the species of fish, or the size, and so they consume any fish they can find. They don't have the bill for catching big fish, however, so normally they only eat small to medium fish. Sometimes the greaves will also eat crustaceans, insects, or even other animals. But by far the weirdest thing Western Greebes eat is feathers. Yep. Western Greebes eat their own feathers. In fact, all greaves do this. And no, it's not some weird weight loss strategy. It actually has a purpose. When greebes eat their flank feathers, or the feathers from their side, the feathers go into their stomachs, where most of them form a large ball. Now, we don't really know what the ball does, but some think that it might help with the recurgitation of fish bones and possibly some other stuff. The really interesting part is what happens to the other feathers. You see some feathers instead pile up at the exit of the stomach, forming what is known as a pyloric plug. This plug is thought to be used as a filter so that sharp fish bones and shells don't get into the intestines. Now, many other birds also eat fish and crustaceans, and they don't eat their feathers, so who knows why only grebes do it, or but they do. Anyway, Western Greebes will capture their prey by diving underwater and either spearing it or grabbing it in their bill. Interestingly, Western Grebes have a special mechanism in their neck that allows them to spear fish like a heron or egret does. I believe this is unique to greebes, and it's pretty cool. Western grebes nest in large marshes, ponds, or lakes all around Western North America. They normally nest in colonies, sometimes with hundreds or even thousands of greebes nesting on one lake. These lakes are often filled with displaying greaves. These ceremonies are used to reinforce the pair bond, and they also help them find mates and chase off rivals. Western Greaves commonly perform three ceremonies. The first is the rushing ceremony. This one normally has three parts. First, the two greaves will call to each other in what is called advertising. Males will advertise to females, and also they'll sometimes do it with other males. Then the two birds will do what is called ratchet pointing and dip shaking. In ratchet pointing, the bird puts its head down and points its bill towards the other bird while making a harsh ratchet-like sound. At the same time, the other bird will perform dip shaking, in which they dip their bill in the water and then raise and shake it before lowering it again. This is all happening very fast and is very hard to follow. Then they dance. Both birds will jump up from the water and start running frantically, pattering their feet and holding their wings halfway extended. Then they will run for about 30 to 60 feet, or 10 to 20 meters. Then both birds will dive underwater, resurfacing nearby. This is kind of hard to explain, so I highly recommend you watch a video of the display. I'll put a video up on the Bird of the Day website at birdofhedaypodcast.com, and you can watch it there. There are a few other ceremonies, including the weed ceremony and greeting ceremony, but I won't go into too much detail on these ones. Once the pear bond has formed, they will find a suitable nest site and build a nest. Normally, nests are made of large amounts of vegetation. These nests are actually pretty substantial things. Oftentimes the mound will be built up from the bottom of a lake or off of a submerged log, though sometimes they'll make it floating. This requires a lot of plants, but greebes are efficient workers, and so it will only take about two to three days for a nest to be built. Soon, a few milky white eggs will be laid in the nest, and then they'll be incubated for about three weeks. Then some small fluffy chicks will pop out. Western Greebchicks are precocial, meaning the young are fluffy and can walk around only a few moments after being born. In other words, Western Greebchicks are cute. They will stay with mom and dad for a while longer, often riding on the backs of the parent birds while they swim. After a few months, these chicks will become fully feathered adult western grebes, continuing to swim, dive, and dance.