Doug, Tweets,

During my observations of Pied-billes on Green Lake (Seattle, King Co.) I had a late hatching date of October 6 (1991), with several young from that brood surviving till flight capability (around 35 days of age; mid-November in this case). I say flight capability because sometimes the adults continue feeding young well past this point (sometimes 11 - 14 weeks).

If the young you saw were in the stripe-head stage on Sept. 14, they could have been capable of flight already at that time, so I'm not surprised they were gone by the 24th.

Where exactly is this pond? A quick search on Google Maps for West Rocky Prairie Wildlife Area comes up negative.
What kind of food would they have been feeding on? Fish, insects (and their larvae), crayfish?

Thanks for sharing the observations.

Martin Muller, Seattle
martinmuller at msn.com

> From: "Doug Canning igc" <dcanning at igc.org>
> Date: October 13, 2011 5:15:31 PM PDT
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Subject: [Tweeters] Pied-billed Grebe chicks
> Reply-To: dcanning at igc.org
>
>
> This is a much belated posting...
>
> On September 14th I saw an adult Pied-billed Grebe with 6 juveniles still partially in their
> "stripe-head" plumage stage on a small open-water pool within a willow swamp on the
> West Rocky Prairie Wildlife Area, Thurston County. All had the striped plumage on their
> head and nape, some also had bits of red on their crown. Below their neck, they had all
> acquired their later, brownish juvenal plumage.
>
> This seems like a late date for such young Pied-billed chicks but I have little experience
> with them: in the past 30 years I've seen juveniles only only seven other occasions.
>
> On the 24th I was again at this location but did not see any of them.
>
> Any comments on the timing? or location?
>
> Doug
>
> ***************************************
> Doug Canning, Olympia Wash.
> dcanning at scattercreek dot com
> dcanning at igc dot org
> ***************************************