As soon as a young one hatches, it climbs onto the back of one of its parents. Because they do not all hatch simultaneously, young ones ride on the parent's back as the remaining eggs are being turned and incubated. Once all of the chicks have hatched, the family leaves the congested nesting area, where other grebes compete for food, and hungry northern pike frequent the shallows. One of the young grebe's first meals is a feather from the breast of one of its parents. Gary Nuechterlein, a grebe specialist at North Dakota State University, posits that feathers might protect the stomach lining from tiny sharp bones when the young are fed minnows, or they could help to capsulize indigestible material so it can be regurgitated as pellets.
Adults also eat feathers, perhaps for the same purposes.
When first photographing the birds, I was too eager to get close. Twice I got pecked above the knee. Luckily, I was wearing heavy rubber waders that kept me from getting pierced. Funny things can happen too. One day two fellows fished for sunfish just a few feet from where I floated, undetected, in the rushes.