With beautiful calm, sunny weather I was able to find the Western Grebe this
afternoon, Wednesday, at 4 PM. It was straight out from the parking area,
swimming, snoozing and preening. Over about an hour it swam leisurely west
until it was behind the bluff. I was able to pick it up again by scanning from
the State Park shore.
I noticed a couple things; it doesn't associate with the Red-necked
Grebes at all. Once when crossing paths with another Grebe it dove and swam
underneath to avoid a close encounter. Many times it looked like it had
something trailing behind like a tail extension, but was only dragging a leg.
I've seen other birds stretch their legs, but this guy seemed to do in
constantly mostly the right leg. Sometimes he would windmill his leg around the
side of his body. I don't think anything was wrong, maybe it just felt good.
When past the bluff toward the State Park he resumed actively feeding, diving
about every 30 seconds and staying down about 20 seconds each time. He came up
with a fish on very many of those dives. This lasted about 1/2 hour. He then
resumed swimming out to the northwest in a straight line, but not diving
anymore. He must have been full. When I left at 6 PM he was still visible in
the scope.
Gary Kohlenberg
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