Undoubtedly, my favorite sequence of shots during my last Malheur visit were those of this Western Grebe. She first attracted my attention because of her ruffled tail feathers. I also noticed that she didn’t dive when I pointed a camera at her unlike most of her companions.
I didn’t have to watch her too long before I discovered why. All my questions were answered as soon as I saw the small head pop up.
Needless to say, she became a focal point. It didn’t take too long before I realized she had not one but two chicks.
Later, when she caught a small fish, the chicks became quite vocal.
I’m still not sure if the one chick ate the entire fish are if it actually ended up being shared. Either way, both of the chicks appeared quite healthy.
Although I was delighted last year when I got shots of larger chicks crawling up on their mom’s back, I liked these shots even more. I’m going to have a hard time topping these.