Hi Gary and Tweets,



Gary, I saw something similar to what you describe on Sikes Lake, near Carnation Farm.? Except in the case I witnessed, it was three Western Grebes and a slightly-too-large catfish.? In migration, Sikes Lake typically gets a few Western Grebes (WEGR)?passing through in spring and fall, though they rarely stay more than a couple of days.? I was driving over the bridge that crosses the lake and stopped to watch several WEGR.? One dove and came up with a fairly good-sized catfish.? The bird which caught the catfish did exactly as you described, carefully positioning the fish head-first and then trying to swallow it.? Whether due to the size of the fish or its?spines, the bird never did get the fish down.? Two other grebes stayed in close proximity to the one trying to down the fish, watching the process with interest.? Finally, after?at least?a half dozen attempts, the first grebe dropped the fish in the water and one of the other two WEGRs immediately grabbed it and began duplicating the attempts of grebe number one.? Bird number two was also persistent but had no more luck than number one.? The fish was dropped again, grabbed again by one of the birds and it appeared this standoff was going to continue ad infinitum and so I left.? They had not actually fully abandoned?the fish?yet, but it did not appear that any of the birds was going to be successful.? I concluded the birds were probably fortunate that none succeeded in swallowing the fish to the point where they could not drop it, because it certainly seemed it could have become lodged in the esophagus and be the bird's undoing.?



John Tubbs

Snoqualmie, WA

johntubbs at comcast.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Bletsch" <garybletsch at yahoo.com>
To: "tweeters tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2009 6:40:02 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [Tweeters] Profligate Pied-billed Grebe


Dear Tweetes,

Today I dithered about among Skagit County's "Lake District," rather than racing out to Mount Erie, which is what a sensible birder would have done.

There were no Redheads to be found on Clear, Beaver, or Mud Lake. There weren't any at DeBay's Slough, either.

However, at Mud Lake, I watched a Pied-billed Grebe kill and then discard a fish that I think was a crappie of some sort. It was shaped like a sunfish, but had black spots on the fins and tail.

The grebe had a grey bill with black band around it; two other Pied-billed Grebes with straw-colored bills followed it around, as the pied-billed one tried to swallow this leviathan.

Again and again, the grebe would position the fish, then try to swallow it, but the wide shape of the crappie's body prevented the bird from so doing. After being subjected to perhaps ten of these punishments, the fish flopped its tail back and forth in an ever more feeble manner.

Meanwhile, the other two grebes kept close, but never made any aggressive moves. At one point, one of them did put its bill within an inch or two of the fish, and made a tentative move toward it, but did not press the issue. The grebe with the fish appeared to pay no heed to the other grebe.

After about five minutes of this, the grebe with the fish just dropped it in the lilly-pad shallows. I could see the fish lying in the water, maybe an inch or two below the surface, not moving at all. The other two birds stayed there for a moment, and then swam off. ?Within a minute or two, all three were looking for more suitable prey.

There were Buffleheads nearby, but they ignored the whole scene. No other birds came over to investigate, so I left after another ten minutes.

I don't recall ever seeing a grebe kill something and then let it go to waste. Come to think of it, I cannot seem to recall having witnessed any instance of a bird or other predator doing this.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch ?? ?Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ?? ?garybletsch at yahoo.com ?? ??



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