Greetings tweeters,

Thank you Russell Rogers and Trileigh Stroh for the nice remarks about my
Pied-bill article in Washington Birds #4. It's been very rewarding to see the
result of many hours of observing and enjoying the birds as well as
nit-picking the literature, in print. My thanks to WOS for printing it.

Since Trileigh heard the first Pied-bill booming on Green Lake the other day,
I will resume my efforts to record their calls. This in preparation of a
second article on Pied-bills, this time their courtship and agonistic
behavior. I already have many fascinating observations (some behaviors never
before mentioned in the grebe literature), but what is lacking is a good set
of recordings (to make sonograms) to complete the material. In order to make
recordings of decent quality, recording times are confined to Sunday mornings
between an hour before sun rise and about 6:30 (to avoid the rumble of Aurora
Avenue traffic which interferes with the low range of the Pied-bills' calls),
without wind or rain. The past two nesting seasons have not yielded enough
good quality recordings. So I'll try again this year.

To answer Trileigh's question about Pied-bill calls: I assume that the
long-distance call you heard could be described as a coughing-call or
something like Palmer's description (Birds of North America Vol. I):

Notes begin low, soft, and rather slowly, increase in loudness and speed,
rise in pitch, then fall in pitch, slow and decrease in loudness to end.[ ]
Occasional calls long continued, ending in long repeated o-o-o-
waah-o-o-o-waah; suggests bray of donkey or cackle of hen.

There are as many descriptions of this -and other Pied-bill calls- as there
are describers. Hence the need for sonograms.

This long, far-carrying call, is considered a territorial call given by the
male, with the female giving a softer, shorter call in response. One of the
reasons I like doing research on Green Lake is that the birds and their nests
are out in the open among the water lillies. Thus I watched a female lay an
egg in her nest (I assume it was safe to call her a female...) and three
minutes later give the full "male" call. The stuff articles are made of... But
to answer your question, there is not one "official" name for this call yet.
I'm working on it (I hope).

The shorter call two birds give when swimming together -Trileigh gave it the
name "gibbling"-, most likely is part of the Greeting Ceremony between the
partners of a pair. Were the birds by chance swimming towards each other and
-after meeting up- swimming alongside one another for a short distance while
giving this call? Was it the rapid staccato ek-ek-ek call, lasting two to
three seconds? This call has been named "Hen-flicker recognition call" by Anne
Bowes, in her work on the (now probably extinct) Atitlan Grebe, or Giant
Pied-billed Grebe. I would call it Greeting Call.

During territorial disputes, where males puff up their -contrasting black-
throats, raise their crowns, and raise their wings somewhat (sometimes
vibrating the wings), pivoting 180 degrees or more, usually showing their
profiles to rival birds mere inches away, I have never heard vocalizations. If
mere bluffing by pivoting or swiveling (the term pivoting is already taken for
the description of a different grebe -I believe the Horned-) isn't enough, a
staring contest ensues, possibly resulting in fighting. I have never seen
neighboring males fight. As far as I know fights only occur between territory
holders and strange intruders. To me that makes perfect sense, the stylized
swiveling and puffing-up after all is meant to intimidate and avoid fighting
and possible injuries.

Interestingly enough, a very similar swivel display is performed by partners
during courtship, with very subtle modifications of tail and wing posture (the
tail raised or lowered exposing or hiding the white under tail coverts).

If you, Trileigh, or anyone else hears Pied-bills vocalize during this
swiveling, I'd appreciate to hear/read about it.

Thanks for the posting and see you out there, Trileigh.

Martin Muller, Seattle
206/525-5575
MartinMuller at msn.com