For about 5 years on an approx. weekly schedule I have been walking my dogs around some shallow wetland ponds on the north end of Canyon Park. I have noticed that Pied-billed Grebes leave (or stay very hidden) in mid-summer (July and most of August) . However today (October 14) I saw my first evidence of any grebe nesting, with 1 parent feeding 2 half-grown striped chicks. Later after circling the pond, a second parent joined the chicks. A fifth grebe on another pond was perhaps a record count for this wetlands of perhaps 2 acres that is mostly filled in with cattails and mud, and crowded with about 50 well-fed mallards, mutt mallards, gadwalls, coots, and other assorted waterfowl migrants.
Bob Schmidt
Bothell