Kip’s Comments - March 19, 2025 — LadagePhotography.com

Then The Polliwogs Went Limp

Last night I provided a Nature/Outdoor Photography presentation for the Northern Iowa Pond and Koi Club. Our conversation ran the gamut of outdoor topics, including how some birds that feed on fish, crawdads, and frogs usually beat the life out of their prey before dropping them headfirst down their throat. Regardless of how cute or small or attractive a bird may be, each feeds on something smaller. Ingesting something with much life left in it is dangerous and a threat to the health of the larger bird (predator).

Ironically, today while I was out for my daily “Nature Rx” I found a pair of pied-billed grebes eventually in the active feeding process.

After shooting some basic pictures of the birds, I left the area reasoning how many pied-billed grebe pictures does one person need. Then it dawned on me that with the weather, the chances of finding any other species at close range was small. And, maybe I would be treated to a grebe feeding show.

So i returned to my spot and waited for the grebes to put on a show. Many minutes passed before the grebes appeared again, but when they did show up, both birds were hungry. The pair of grebes would swim around, dive down, then pop back up with a polliwog (tadpole) clenched firmly in their jaws. I saw no polliwog escape the bill of a grebe, and each was beaten to a stage of limp before it was swallowed.

What I watched was gruesome for the tadpoles, but necessary for the grebes that had moved into the area after a long migratory flight. For the frogs… it is a good thing they reproduce in the hundreds since many birds know polliwogs are a good menu item. For the predatory birds… thank you for the “natural show” of the predator/prey relationship.

Following are ordinary pied-billed grebe images and some from the feeding frenzy.