Thanks, John. I think you're right about the Western Grebes.

I searched some info and I'm quite certain you are right. About the wing
flapping, my Audubon bird app shows a picture of a Western Grebe doing
exactly that. And the size and coloring fits, too.

Lastly, ebird.org shows several sightings of Western Grebes near Carr Inlet
in large numbers like I saw (400, 550, 150) at a similar time of year.

Thanks so much for your help.

Sarah

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:01 PM, John Riegsecker <jriegsecker at pobox.com>
wrote:

> Hi Sarah,
>
> I think we can rule out Loons. As you observed, there are loons around,
> but not in those numbers. One possibility is Western Grebe. They
> certainly appear in those numbers, they tend to form lines, they have
> longish necks, the front of their necks are white, the backs dark, dark
> bodies and heads. The only thing is I don't often seem them rise up and
> flap their wings.
>
> Another possibility might be Common Merganser. There are many Common
> Mergansers in the area around Fox Island and they tend to form lines and
> rise up and flap their wings. However, they don't meet the other criteria
> as well.
>
>
> Far across the inlet at the end of the day I spotted a large number of
>>
>> birds, mostly in groups of 30-50, probably 250 in all. They were far away
>>
>> and back-lit, so even with my scope they were difficult to identify. To
>> me,
>>
>> they looked like Loons, either Common or Pacific. Do Loons gather in large
>>
>> numbers like this? Maybe they were following a fish run? They were mostly
>>
>> bunched up in a long group, but other groups were strung out more
>> sparsely.
>>
>> It's possible the entire 250 birds were not all the same bird, but they
>>
>> certainly looked similar (but being so far they all looked like black and
>>
>> white dots).
>>
>>
>>
>> What I could see was a white neck and body, dark head, dark back of neck,
>>
>> and dark body (as far as I could tell). Many of them were rising up to
>> flap
>>
>> their wings so I could see their white bellies. It was hard to
>> distinguish
>>
>> size being so far away, but I don't think they were cormorants because
>> they
>>
>> weren't swimming down in the water. I did spot some Marbled Murrelets,
>>
>> Pigeon Guillemots, a Common Loon closer into shore, close enough to
>>
>> identify, so these birds are around our area at this time.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thoughts? I'm new to birding on the Puget sound so I'm still learning what
>>
>> to expect. I'd appreciate any help.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sarah G.
>>
>
>
> --
> John Riegsecker
>
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