horned grebe

One or two of these birds usually turn up at one of my local reserves each winter but I've always found them to be a bit elusive, so I was very pleased to get a good close up view of this bird this winter. I do like the subtle colours of winter plumaged grebes.

Horned Grebe resting in a small lake while migrating north

This is the female. You can tell she is serious about this busness and wants to move on with it. As you can see, she has gone into the mud at the bottom of the lake for her material. She does not appear to be too concerned about her appearance either.

This male Grebe has picked up some nest material. Notice how clean and neat he is. He has picked his material off the surface. Wait till you see the female.

These Horned Grebes are about to start their mating ritual. I am going to post this image and two others showing how things progress.

Horned Grebe, we have several still hanging around here.

I tried for two days to get a half way decent shot of one these birds. They were pairing up apparently and were doing their dances, diving and running on the surface of the water.

I was going through my photos and came upon this one. It is interesting how many shots you can overlook.

Took this one yesterday at my favorite lake. First post for a while.

The reflecting of the light off the waters give this little Horned Grebe a 'bedazzling look' helped along with that piercing red eye stare

Nothing really exciting. Just a classic profile portrait of this juvie between the seaplane slips in Anchorage.

This should probably have been my Saturday Fun Shot yesterday, but I'm just working my way from left to right, top to bottom, three a day, so today will have to do. Sunday silliness? Is that allowed? The young grebe isn't dead, or even playing dead. He was just trying out whether a cold dip was...

According to the map, I walked over 13 miles today. No wonder I'm falling asleep at the computer here :S Came home with about 1000 shots to edit, but so far I've done only these three that I thought I'd post today. The rest will have to wait. Good thing I got a lot of good shots in those 1000...

Second shot of latest Horned Grebe visitor to our area.

Horned Grebe has been the migrant of the year in our area for this year. They have been showing up here in more than usual numbers since early spring. In early spring we were able to see them in transition colors but now they are in full breeding colors and are quite a beautiful bird. This one...

Another angle of same bird as in previous posting.

We have been seeing more Horned Grebes in migration this year than ever before. We usually see a couple during migration but this year they seem to be being reported every other day. This one was one of a pair swimming and fishing on a local pond. It is in partial transition to it's breeding colors.

FOS bird for me. We have to get these guys early up here as they are just passing thru during migration north. This one in transition colors was happily fishing on the river quite close to the shore. Will probably be in full breeding colors by the time he hits his breeding grounds way north.

No mate in sight:/

I have been trying to get a half way decent picture of one of these for the last 3 weeks! This little guy was quite easy with me sitting on the sea wall. He stayed about 20 feet from me and sort of posed.

Taken at a small lake in Cairngorms Natioal Park, Scotland