Bathing Adult Pied-billed Grebe Splashing Water

Adult Pied-billed Grebe bathing and splashing – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/1600, ISO 400, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light

The clouds moved out and the sun was shining yesterday afternoon so I went down to my local pond to see if there were any birds there that were close enough to photograph. I saw gulls, coots, geese, Mallards, a few Redheads, a few Common Goldeneyes, a couple of Common Mergansers and Pied-billed Grebes.

I saw a few of the grebes catching crayfish and the California and Ring-billed Gulls diving at them in attempts to steal their prey but most of that happened too far away to take high quality images of the action.

An adult Pied-billed Grebe swam in close enough to take nice photos of it as it preened its feathers then a little while later it started to bathe.

The Pied-billed Grebe dunked its head then slapped its wings against the water vigorously which caused the icy water to fly in all directions. I have a long series of this action but there were only a few images where I got a nice view of the grebe’s eyes and caught catch lights, this image was one of those.

Adult Pied-billed Grebe shaking water from its head – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/1600, ISO 400, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light

After splashing and bathing for about a minute the adult Pied-billed Grebe shook the water off of its head and settled down for a few seconds before the grebe started to bathe again.

It was worth going down to the pond just for these two frames. I’m sure glad the sun came out.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that the Pied-billed Grebes at my local pond are beginning to develop black rings on their bills again which indicates that spring and their breeding season isn’t so very far away now.

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Pied-billed Grebe photos plus facts and information about this species.