The Howland
Pied-billed Grebe Page The Howland
Pied-billed Grebe PagePage by Royce
Last update: $Date: 2003/07/07 23:11:34 $ (UTC)
The Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps), for my money, has the least Grebe-like appearance of the whole family. But this wasn't something that we lost sleep over since we had never seen any Pied-billed Grebes until the day of the first photos on this page. With its drab coloration and secretive nature, combined with our lack of time spent watching for water birds, it isn't surprising that we had no familiarity with this bird.
On seeing a single adult with its fluffy plumage, stocky, banded bill and black eye with bold white eye-ring, we thought "Hmm, that's interesting." When some juveniles swam out of the covering reeds, their even more striking appearance and almost non-stop calling really grabbed our attention. According to the CLO Bird of the Week information, the crimson coloring on the chick is a sign of hunger. So presumably the parents' attention was really what the chicks were trying to grab.
Resources where you can find out more:
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<squint, squint> What are those?
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Two families of Pied-billed Grebes were among our most interesting observations of Sunday, July 6, 2003 at a new spot for us -- Frank Lake, Alberta. Frank Lake is an important shallow lake / wetlands area that has been well known for a long time. Restoration of the location to a stable point has been a Ducks Unlimited Canada project since the lake last dried out in the 1980's. Somehow, we had never made the trip to Frank Lake, about one hour southeast from where we are in Calgary. Today we decided to go for it, and found it was an excellent way to spend the day. Here is a photo from about 25 meters distance that shows an early sighting of a Pied-billed Grebe and one of its chicks. The shot was taken from the shelter of the blind at the lake's main, west-side viewing point. The blind looks out over a small, closed-in area of water and reeds in the foreground, with the expanse of the lake beyond. Photo info:
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The proud parent looks on...
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Once I had taken a few safety shots with my camera on its own, such as the preceding photo, I switched over to my digiscoping setup which includes a Pentax PF-80EDA spotting scope. I wasn't sure I would be able to get any good shots of the Grebes in the shade of the reeds, but a few came out rather well. Shooting the camera in aperture priority mode allowed better depth of field, and the day was bright enough to keep the shutter speed reasonable at higher F-stops. Photo info:
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"Junior has my eyes, but his father's
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Here is another digiscoping shot of the same parent and chick.
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"Now if only they would sleep through
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Here is a digiscoped shot just of the adult Pied-Billed Grebe.
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