Hi All: I uploaded a new HD video of eared and horned grebes on Puget Sound Museum channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/PugetSoundMuseum#p/a/u/0/dk4f_Bfw6v0). It runs for about 5 min with the grebes and a few other species feeding.
Eared grebes have been numerous this fall & winter along Tramp Harbor or east of Portage (Vashon Island). Besides providing some great comparative views of the two grebes, some points of interest in the video are the fluffed butts of the eared grebes. No clue why they do this, but if you watch, they fluff their feathers after popping up and then compress the fluffed feathers before diving. The horned don't seem to do this or at least it is not as obvious. Also of note is the leap before diving. The scaup, rb mergs and goldeneyes do a similar leaps. I'd always thought grebes had more pronounced leaps. Finally, watch as the grebes pop up. They come up like corks - extremely bouyant.

Gary Shugart, Slater Museum of Natural History, University of Puget Sound,Tacoma, WA & Vashon Island