I'm very happy to see the discussion that my pictures generated. Given that
I didn't provide a lot of context in my original e-mail, I thought I should
follow up and clarify some details.

The situation described by Bill Hubick sounds similar to what I saw when I
was there, although there were far fewer Grebes, and only one was really
beached, while two others that I photographed made it to the water. The
seals certainly seemed to be waiting, but the Grebes stayed clustered
together close to the shore, away from the seals reach. The stranded Grebe
that is shown in several photos by itself was picked up by a woman and her
husband and taken to a shelter. She said that they were sending someone to
help the other Grebes. My wife and I left at that point as we wanted to find
the Snowy Owl.

As for the flight of the Grebe, none of the birds photographed were able to
lift off the ground. They flapped there were wings and ran along the beach
for maybe 10 - 20 feet, but never got into the air. The stranded Grebe that
was beached several feet from shore seemed very tired and would take breaks
between each attempt to make it to the water. After resting for a couple
minutes, it would start running again, but would immediately "fall" to the
sand and would go back to resting.

I hope this clears up any confusion regarding the flight of the Grebes
photographed.

Thanks again for taking interest in these photos.

Raymond Parsons
Redmond, WA
rayshome1 at hotmail.com