{"id":3095,"date":"2011-10-10T09:43:29","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T16:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=3095"},"modified":"2012-10-26T10:34:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T17:34:10","slug":"see-my-toes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=3095","title":{"rendered":"See my toes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four Horned Grebes visited me yesterday. It really was a visit: they came within maybe ten meters and seemed unconcerned by my presence and the incessant clicking of my camera.<\/p>\n<p>A few postings ago, I noted that a grebe is <a title=\"Not a duck\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=3045\">not a duck<\/a>. With this visit, one of the grebes underscored that point by prominently showing its toes. The birds in the Anatidae family (ducks, geese and swans) all have webbed feet (the toes are joined by webbing), a feature that facilitates using the feet for propulsion. Grebes (and coots) solved the problem of having a broad surface for propulsion somewhat differently: each of their toes developed broad lobes. Curiously, this solution has some advantages as the grebes are able to use these lobes as multi-slotted hydrofoils.<\/p>\n<p>Below are pictures of the grebes, with the final image being the bird showing off its toes.<\/p>\n<p>The four Horned Grebes spent a good deal of time near me merely floating.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3097\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/grebes111009es.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Although, sometimes there was a bit of chattering,<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3099\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/grebe111009ds.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>preening,<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3098\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/grebe111009bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>stretching,<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3100\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/grebe111009cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>and, of course, the prominent display of those marvellous lobed toes.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3101\" onmousedown=\"return false\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/grebe111009as.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four Horned Grebes visited me yesterday. It really was a visit: they came within maybe ten meters and seemed unconcerned by my presence and the incessant clicking of my camera. A few postings ago, I noted that a grebe is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=3095\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6588,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions\/6588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}