Hi Everyone,

Well, my birdy workplace continues to provide the occasional surprise, almost always positive. Everyone in our building (shared by two companies) and the second building in our complex has me pegged as 'that bird guy in the corner' - or probably more accurately, that CRAZY bird guy in the corner. Regardless of any adjectives non-birding people here think apply, I get all kinds of bird questions asked of me, and occasionally something way beyond a question. Which just happened five minutes ago...

One of our landlord's facility engineers, who likes birds but doesn't really do birding at all, knocked on my window and motioned for me to come outside. In his car, he had a cardboard box covered with a towel, and said, "Look what I found in the parking lot." In the box was a (probably a first year? - it was in breeding plumage however) PIED-BILLED GREBE cowering in the bottom. It appeared quite healthy though, because when my hand lingered a bit too close, said bird made a quick strike and proved that its beak still functioned quite nicely - delivering a pretty good wakeup pinch. [On a serious note with bigger birds with sharp beaks - like a Great Blue Heron - you can wind up with an eye put out or a serious wound from a bird who doesn't realize you're trying to help, so caution is strongly advised.]

The engineer found the bird at the edge of a parking lot, sitting there and cowering when he approached. He assumed it was hurt, collected it in the box and asked what he should do with it. We have two small retention ponds at work, one of which periodically hosts a visiting Pied-billed Grebe, so we let the bird loose in the water, and after a few seconds of apparent surprise at being back in its appropriate habitat, the bird drank and drank and drank some more and then immediately dived to look for food. It is now happily swimming around and diving frequently.

What almost certainly happened with this bird is that it was flying the other night when it was raining, saw the reflections from the parking lot and landed on what it thought was a lake - only to find out it was asphalt. This is a not-uncommon occurrence with some waterbirds. Like other grebes (plus loons and coots), this species is a poor enough flyer that it generally can't take off from land - they need to flap their wings like crazy while 'running' along the water to gain enough momentum to get airborne. With their legs set way back on their body to facilitate diving and swimming underway, they can barely waddle on hard ground, let alone run to take off. It probably crawled off to the side of the parking lot and simply would have sat there and died there if the engineer hadn't found it.

It will be interesting to see if it is still in our pond tomorrow or if it takes off tonight for wherever it was originally headed. If it is a young bird (or a careless older one), hopefully this experience will make it a little more astute about confirming landing sites!


John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com