I birded Marymoor Park in Redmond for the first time this evening, and saw some interesting behavior from a pied-billed grebe. It was aggressively pursuing a mallard female, which was unremarkable, albeit entertaining, but then it did something that surprised me. It submerged to continue the attack! It was clear from her body language that the mallard was still being harassed, and sure enough, the p.b.g. popped up a few seconds later, right on the ducktail.

I tried to surmise why the grebe would attack in this fashion; all I could think of was that (a) it would be less exposed to predation, or (b) it might be less likely to incur any retaliation from the mallard (although the latter certainly didn't seem to want to participate in the fracas at all). Neither of these really satisfied me, however. I would think that, if anything, this method would be a less effective approach to bluff-and-bluster. Any ideas what it was up to? Is this common p.b.g. behavior?


Jim McCoy
jfmccoy at earthlink.net
Redmond, WA


P.s. Being a Washington newbie, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a veery singing. It wasn't clear to me from the NGS range map whether or not I could expect this species around Puget Sound. I also saw a couple of band-tailed pigeons, my life California quail (one of the few species that actually looks like the way it's portrayed in cartoons), a Swainson's thrush, a marsh wren, a flock of cedar waxwings, and assorted other common stuff. Not shabby for an hour's work!