Hey tweets, yesterday I had to rare privilege of seeing two pied-billed
grebes in flight at the Fill. In all my years of birding, I have seen
flying pied-billed grebes only once before. This time, I saw the whole
flight close-up on Union Bay. The birds took off like coots, running along
the water while vigorously flapping. One grebe never did get very much
more advanced than this, but the other one managed to get about five feet
high into the air, fly for a short distance, and then belly-flop down on
the water. Its landing was even more fun to watch than its takeoff. It
glided on the surface of the lake like a penguin belly-skating on ice,
with its feet held straight back. It slid along on the surface of the
water for a bit, then stopped in the normal floating position that I
usually see. I'm trying to remember now whether other water birds ever do
this? Ducks and geese put their landing gear (i.e., their feet) down first
and then water-ski along the water briefly. But what do loons do? Or
guillemots? Or alcids? It just goes to show that there is always something
more you can learn when you're out birding. I'll bet there are all kinds
of specializations that birds have evolved to handle the problem of
landing. I think it would be fun to make a study of this. I remember
interviewing a pilot of a seaplane one time. He flew fishermen up to
remote lakes in Alaska. He said that he always had to pay attention to
landing because no one would help him get aloft again if he screwed up -
the places he flew were just too remote. The main thing he had to watch
for was whether a lake was big enough to allow for his plane to taxi until
it could build up the speed to take off again. - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com