Subject: Diving bird
Date: Sep 7 22:51:54 1996
From: Bob Mauritsen - rhm at ms.washington.edu


I'm a beginning birder and this is my first posting on Tweeters. I was at
the end of the fishing pier at Edmonds today watching a small diving bird,
and I can't seem to ID it in the Petersen Guide.

It was overcast, and the bird was some distance from me. It also dived
for
several minutes at a time, surfacing for only about 30 seconds or less
before diving again. And it was often obscured by the swells. It was a
dark murky brown in color, with a relatively short, thickish beak, which
was also darkish. The bird didn't seem to be much larger than a
pied-billed grieb, but I might be wrong on that. The most noticeable
point
was that when it dove, it quickly extended its wings about 3/4 of the way
and sort of "flew" in. And the undersides of the wings had a lot of
white.

I'm sure that this must be some obvious bird that everyone knows. Thanks
for your help.

Bob Mauritsen
rhm at ms.washington.edu