Hi Everyone,

I'm an out-of-state birder visiting on a work trip from Maryland. I spent the weekend between Puget Sound and Grays Harbor, and encountered a similar scene to what was Raymond Parsons captured in words and images. While I'd like to echo the thoughts on the very nice images, I would like to point out an important aspect of the grebes on the beach. The birds were dying from exhaustion. When my friend and I arrived at about 3 p.m. on Saturday (1/7), there were about 35 Western Grebes resting on the beach, protected by the Ocean Shores jetty. Grebes do not typically take to land except under dire circumstances or to nest. The birds were probably exhausted by the same effects of the west winds that have pushed the phalaropes this way. In fact, just 30 minutes before we saw these birds, we spotted a Red Phalarope 10' from the shore at Damon Point State Park. While we watched the grebes, they alternately rested and struggled to work their way out to sea, repeatedly being swept onto!
the rocks and far onto the beach. We watched, quite depressed, as one bird literally fell over from exhaustion. We also observed Harbor Seals, like the one shown in Raymond's photos, and I strongly suspect they were feeding on the exhausted grebes. I am quite certain that had we not been driven off by waning light and a brief hail storm, we would have seen a Harbor Seal taking one or more of them. Harbor Seals are opportunistic feeders, and I have little doubt they sensed the opportunity. We counted 6 seals just past the crashing surf, and they appeared very interested in the grebes. Unfortunately, there appear to be far fewer grebes in Raymond's photos than were present on Saturday. Hopefully some of them were able to rest enough to get to safer waters.

I've posted some photos to my web site at http://www.billhubick.com/new_set.html. The grebe shots are at the bottom of the page. Included on the page are a shot of a hybrid gull and some Cackling Goose photos. I would be interested in any feedback on my tentative identifications.

Regarding Jason Rogers' post, I would concur with the call on one of Raymond's birds being a Clark's Grebe. IMG_0871 shows a face pattern and bill color that looks good to me. IMG_0890 also shows enough white in the wings to probably lock in Clark's.

I agree that the action shots are unique, but as mentioned earlier, one should hesitate at calling the attempted take-offs flight. We watched many exhausted birds struggle for lift-off, but none was successful until padding across water. It is almost impossible for grebes to take off from the ground. In fact, there are many interesting stories about calamity when a grebe finds itself without water. Here's a link to a story of 4 ravens killing 141 grebes that landed on a frozen lake at Yellowstone (http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2004/08/29/news/02ravensbzbigs.txt). What I find extremely noteworthy is to see grebes attempting to walk. This is something that is certainly only rarely documented outside of the nesting season.

Some other noteworthy sightings from Saturday:

Ferry from Seattle to Bremerton
Pigeon Guillemots - 30+
MARBLED MURRELETS - 4-5
RHINOCEROS AUKLET - 1
Mew Gulls - 2

Olympic National Park
Ruffed Grouse - 1
Varied Thrush - 1

Damon Point and Ocean Shores Jetty:
Surfbirds - 12
Black Turnstones ~20
Rock Sandpiper - 1

Good birding to everyone, and thanks for sharing!

Bill Hubick
Elkridge, MD / Lakewood, WA
http://www.billhubick.com
bill_hubick at yahoo.com