Continuing the Greberrific theme from last post, I bring you a semi-new bird from Australia. Just kidding, this one came from our trip to Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve just like all the other birds over the last couple of months. Fact is this bird doesn’t stray far from Canada through lower Baja) . What can I say, the shutter was quite the workhorse those two days (and yes, we are still posting from the first day’s discoveries). In a slight deviation from the long list of Henderson birds that came before it, this one is “technically” not a new bird to the Blog and it did have a check mark in the Bird List. Truth is, the previous mark was written in lightly due to the weak shot I was able to capture. The original pictures can be found back in 2010 from a trip to Yellowstone (link here). You can tell it is a bird and if you squint a lot you can discern it is indeed a Western Grebe (or a Clark’s since the pixilation makes it hard to tell if the black goes above or below the eye). Compare that with this:
Now that is an official Western Grebe check mark. I really like this bird for a number of reasons two of which is the sleek profile and the cool coloring. The red eye and the deadly looking bill give a nice finishing touch to the overall appearance of this bird. A bill that could inflict some serious damage when paired with wing propulsion. Similar to the Eared Grebe from the post before, they are reluctant fliers – damn you winged creatures that prefer to float on the water. According to the Stokes guide they can even one up us on the water by being able to run on the top during their takeoffs or courtships. Sorry folks, no shots of that while we were there.
Hit the jump to read more about this cool Grebe
Life Intrigued 