Horned or Eared Grebe? (1 Viewer)

Greetings!

I was hoping this forum could assist me in sorting out a grebe I saw recently near Fairbanks, Alaska. The pictures below are of what I assume to be a first fall Eared Grebe. The other option (and more common up here) would be a Horned Grebe. The pictures are pretty poor due to being shot through my binoculars with a "point and shoot" digital camera. I cropped the pictures and lightened them a bit with a photo editing program as they were pretty dark. The reason I suspect Eared Grebe is mainly based on the illustrations in Sibley’s Western Bird Guide. The shape of the head and bill seemed to best fit the Eared Grebe to me, but I thought I’d ask for some other opinions. We also saw several juvenile Horned Grebes in a different location but they were obviously Horned and had much cleaner face markings. I did check the following web site (http://montereybay.com/creagrus/ID-EAGRvHOGR.html), but would still like another opinion. If any one would care to weigh in, I’d very much appreciate your help.

Joe H

err...I'm going to go with Eared Grebe as it looks like it doesn't quite have enough white on the throat for Horned.

Hi Joe H.,

What an interesting looking bird. It is clearly in a transitional plumage (in this case, from breeding to winter plumage), which is confounding things. Range dictates that it be a Horned Grebe, but there are some plumage features that support that ID too. I have reattached one of your shots with several features that collectively rule out an Eared Grebe. See attached:

Chris

is that rufous on its neck in the first 2 pics - that would add to horned grebe features. strait away i thought: what?? but then head shape (highest point, angular, well behind eye, somewhat 'long' head) and thickness of the bill led me to feel ok with auritus. they can have quite darkish necks and as chris said, it is moulting into winter plumage, blurrying the cheek colours. horned grebe in my opinion, though a hard one!

Thank you Gentoo and Chris,

I was surprised to see responses this evening. I had assumed it was a juvenile bird and not an adult bird in molt. We do get the Eared up here (listed in the Fairbanks area as accidental to rare), but the Horned is much more common. Thank you for your help.

Joe H

This is what I would call a Slavonian Grebe - coming out of summer plumage, for all the reasons pointed out by Chris. Podiceps auritus Which is I believe Horned