Dear Steve and Tweeters!

Thanks Steve for forwarding my message - Sorry for the mix up (and extra
posting)! I am now subscribed (did something wrong when I tried yesterday)
so you can reply to tweeters if you want..
Thanks!
Bonnie Stout
bestout at sfu.ca

At 10:38 PM 09/23/1998 -0700, Steve Hallstrom wrote:
>Bonnie,
>
>Since you are not subscribed to Tweeters your message was rejected.
>It has been posted. Tweeters, please reply directly to Bonnie.
>
>Steve Hallstrom
>
>> Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 13:04:38 -0700
>> To: TWEETERS at u.washington.edu
>> From: Bonnie Stout <bestout at sfu.ca>
>> Subject: Grebes, grebes, grebes...
>> Mime-Version: 1.0
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> Hello Tweeters!
>>
>> I am a birder and graduate student researching grebes (Red-necked, Horned,
>> and Western). I am hoping to enlist your help in my quest to locate
>> important moult and wintering sites of grebes on the Wash/BC coast.
>>
>> My work so far has identified Boundary Bay as a major moult site for
>> Red-necked and Western Grebes. Yesterday, for example, I counted 2,576
>> Red-necked Grebes in Boundary Bay (1,481 from Crescent Beach, BC; 283 from
>> "1001 steps" [Surrey, BC]; and 812 from Lily Point, Point Roberts, WA).
>> There are also at least as many Western Grebes. Though a few thousand
>> Western Grebes is not a terribly impressive figure for this gregarious
>> species, the number of Red-necked Grebes using Boundary Bay is significant.
>> Smaller numbers of Horned Grebes (140+) are also now present.
>>
>> I observed similar numbers last fall, and the grebes are consistent from
>> year to year in their use of specific sites within Boundary Bay. The
>> Red-necked and Western Grebes are using Boundary Bay during the fall
>> (pre-basic) moult, which occurs anytime from August-mid October. During
>> this moult the grebes have simultaneous moult of flight feathers, rendering
>> them flightless for at least 3 weeks. I have been able to confirm that
>> these birds are undergoing the wing-moult in Boundary Bay by watching them
>> when they flap their wings. A bird which has recently molted its flight
>> feathers is quite obvious as the wings are a shadow of their former selves,
>> appearing very stubby! We know very little about grebes during the
>> non-breeding seasons, especially during moult - a time when they are quite
>> vulnerable. Interestingly, the grebes appear to clear out of Boundary Bay
>> after completion of moult - with numbers falling off rapidly in October and
>> not recovering until spring migrants move back into the area. I have no
>> idea where the Boundary Bay grebes spend the winter...
>>
>> Horned Grebes are also a mystery - I just saw my first Horned Grebe in
>> wing-moult yesterday. Otherwise I have only seen basic-plumaged birds and
>> no sign of wing moult. At Boundary Bay HOGR show up later that RNGR and
>> WEGR. I spent the summer studying Horned and Red-necked Grebes in the
>> Northwest Territories (a tough job, but somebody has to do it), and adult
>> Horned Grebes leave the nesting ponds as early as June, with most gone by
>> early August. Where do HOGR moult - on interior lakes or on the coast?
>>
>> My questions for my fellow birders then are:
>>
>> Do you know of any sites which host concentrations of grebes during August
>> and September (note that many are quite distant from shore and you may only
>> see a fraction of the birds present, depending on viewing conditions - so I
>> am interested any any observations of, say, 30 or more birds for Red-necked
>> and Horned Grebes and 100 or more birds for Western Grebes at a site at a
>> time)?
>>
>> Does anyone see Horned Grebes in August/early September, AND does anyone
>> see alternate or intermediate-plumaged Horned Grebes anywhere on the coast
>> in late summer/fall?
>>
>> Do you know of any sites which host concentrations of grebes during winter
>> and/or during spring migration - if so, when do the birds usually arrive?
>>
>> Thank you in advance for your help!!
>>
>> Bonnie Stout
>> Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
>> bestout at sfu.ca
>>
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