Subject: Mystery Grebe? And other bird querys....
Date: Mar 18 22:19:37 1999
From: S. Downes - sdownes at u.washington.edu


Lydia and other interested tweets,
The birds sound to be like molting Horned Grebes, except for the dark
underbelly (by dark I'm assuming you are indicating blackish). Many Horned
grebes can appear to have a "white necklace speckled with black" the back
can also appear "odd" in molting. Could also be eared though horned would
be much more likely. The dark underbellies are puzzling though. On a
hunch, check Red-necked grebe, they are bit larger. The necklace could
easily be explained, bills can appear dark and the dark underbellies are
more plausible in RNGR. So I would suggest either HOGR or RNGR.

Scott Downes
sdownes at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA

"Birds don't read bird books. (That's why they are seen doing things they
are not supposed to do)." -Mary Wood


On Thu, 18 Mar 1999, lydia wrote:

> The birds were tiny.......Gawd I wish I could figure them out! Any GREBE
> EXPERTS out there? Although they didn't look like the drawings of the
> winter colored eared or horned grebes, their behavior and body language
> suggested *grebe*.
> I wrote earlier this week:
> "......Black heads and bills, Broad White-ish necklaces, speckeled with
> black. Back,
> speckled black and white. Dark under bodies. These little birds were
> diving
> from the surface of the water. Very strong swimmers in the current. They
> were staying pretty much in the same spot inspite of the strong current"
>
> BrewsPad wrote......
> Palegic Cormorants successfully fishing under the Meeker Street Bridge.
> They
> are very strong swimmers and were staying in relatively the same spot in a
> very strong current. When surfaced, they "sit" very low in the water.
> Though
> I didn't have binoculars to get a detail look at them, the "Birds of
> Seattle
> and Puget Sound" (Chris C. Fisher) picture shows them to have a whitish
> necklace and white on their backs. The major difference between these
> and the
> birds Lydia describes is the size. The Pelagic Cormorants are a little
> larger
> than a Mallard.
>
> GREBE EXPERTS Please Speak Up!
>
> Oh, and the other day I saw what looked like a CORMORANT land on a
> teetery tall branch of a tree above the Green River. The darned bird had
> trouble geting it's balance on such an unstable perch. Do cormorants land
> on tall branches? It didn't appear slender and long necked enough to be
> a Great Blue Heron.
>
> And GEESE......The other day I was looking for the elusive ROSS/SNOW
> goose and spied several flocks of Canadas of various size. I have heard
> flocks of Cacklers flying over head several times this past fall and
> winter.
> One of the flocks by the Boeing Space Center had individuals with fairly
> wide white "necklaces", and when they decided I was stalking too close
> they flew off sounding like a cross between regular and cacklers. These
> geese seemed a bit smaller than the honkers. Do the smaller geese sound
> less honkey than than the big ones, but not as "caklery" as Cacklers?
>
> Oh, and in the pond sunken so stealthily in the field, I spied my first
> EURASIAN WIGEON in a small flock of American Wigeons.
>
> Lydia In Kent
>
> Lydia Gaebe In Kent, WA
> lydia at wizards.net
> Life Is A Soap On The Reality Side Of The Tube
>
>