Eared Grebe

 I am sure that most people have heard the story f the ugly duckling. How a chick that looks different then all the other duck chicks grows up to become a beautiful swan. Well there are some species of birds that go through a similar metamorphosis each year. Take the eared grebe for example. The subject of both of these photos are eared grebes. Other then the red eye they do not look the same and I bet that if you spotted the two of them right next to each other that most people would think that they were two different species.

Of course spotting these two next to each other would be highly unlikely. The top photo is the eared grebe in its winter plumage. This photo was taken in California in February. Eared grebes migrate to the Pacific Coast, southwestern United States, and Mexico. The second photo is an eared grebe in its breeding plumage. I guess that it is hard to find a mate when you are in black and white. This photo was taken in Montana in May. Eared grebes breed on inland lakes in the western half of the U. S. and Canada.

Eared Grebe

Eared Grebe

The eared grebe is the most abundant grebe in the world. They are found on all continents except for Australia and Antarctica. In Europe, Asia, and Africa they are known as the black-necked grebe. During the breeding season these birds have magnificent plumage, as in the photo above. During the winter they migrate south.and lose most of their colorful plumage, becoming mostly gray and white except for their bright red eyes.

Eared Grebe

As children many of us heard the story about the ugly duckling that grew into a beautiful swan. I think that the eared grebe would have been a better star for the story then the swan. The eared grebe spends about half of the year in its grey, bland plumage but during breeding season they become spectacular.

Eared Grebe

The eared grebe is one of those birds that makes and amazing transformation each year. In the winter they are a fairly unremarkable black and white but when breading season approaches they become a beautiful rust and black color with vibrant red eyes. Although they are found in western portions of Minnesota I have only seen them hear during migration. Most of my pictures of them are from Montana where we see them in Yellowstone or one of the wild life refuges that we often stop at. These grebes were photographed at Bowdoin NWR.

Bowdoin NWR

Yellowstone in May is not exactly a birders paradise so we typically arrange another stop or two, while on vacation, to do a little bit of birding. This year we left Yellowstone a day early so that we could visit a couple of other parks on our way home. Unfortunately due to bad weather and a flat tire we only had the opportunity to make one stop.
Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge is located in the short and mixed grass prairie region of North-central Montana. It is home to many western prairie species of birds such as the western kingbird and western meadowlark, pictured above.
Bowdoin was established back in 1936 to help protect vital resting, feeding and breeding habitat for migrating birds, particularly waterfowl and shorebirds. The refuge encompasses 15,551 acres, 8,675 of which is wetlands. The wetlands provide homes to a variety of birds such as the yellow-headed blackbird pictured above.
The refuge is centered around Lake Bowdoin. In preglacial times it is believed that the lake was actually an Oxbow in the Missouri River but over time the river has moved 70 miles south of the lake. What was left behind is a variety of habitats including saline and freshwater wetlands and native prairie. These are perfect habitat for the marbled godwit pictured above.
Before 1936 Lake Bowdoin was used by the Montana Bureau of Reclamation as a catch basin to help manage the waters of spring floods, irrigation return flows and seepage. Each spring snow melt would pour down into the lake from Beaver Creek and the Black Coulee drainage flooding the land around the lake. This provided good habitat for shorebirds and waterfowl that were migrating north at about the same time, like the white-faced ibis flying above.
Once the refuge was established the Works Progress Administration began the construction of the refuge headquarters as well as a system of water control structures designed to help manage the wetlands to provide the proper habitat for waterfowl and shorebirds like the Wilson's phalarope pictured above.
Lake Bowdoin sits on 5,459 acres of the refuge. Islands in the lake hold breeding colonies of white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, California and ring-billed gulls. Wetland areas around the lake provide habitat for American avocet, black-necked stilts, ducks and grebes. Eared grebes in breeding plumage are a common site at this time of year.
In the upland prairie areas you can find pronghorn antelope, deer, sharp-tailed grouse and raptors. We found a pair of northern harriers hunting in the fields just outside the refuge. I was happy to get a shot of the mail in flight. I see females pretty frequently around home, mostly during the fall, but I hardly ever see the males. Female harriers are mostly brown compared to the light gray color of the males from which they have received the nickname, "the gray ghost".

Grebes

Since I got a lot of positive reaction from the grebe picture that I posted yesterday in my Yellowstone Fishing Bridge post I decided to repost some of my old grebe pics.

I first got interested in photographing grebes when I saw some pics of them, in their breeding plumage, online back in 2006. The photographer who took the pics, I do not remember who it was any more, had noted that he took the pics at Medicine Lake NWR in June. So I did some research on Medicine Lake NWR and found that it was not far off of the north route to Yellowstone. So when we were planning our 2007 Yellowstone trip we, Michelle and I, decided to cut a day out of photographing Yellowstone and make a side trip to Medicine Lake.

This turned out to be a good decision. The weather in Yellowstone was not very cooperative for us that year and it had a big effect on our ability to go out and take pics. Our day at Medicine Lake was just the opposite however. We had beautiful weather, there were lots of birds to photograph and we got some great eared grebe shots.

Then in the early spring of 2008, while I was photographing the heron rookery at the Upper Mississippi Regional Park I spotted a grebe bobbing around in the river. It looked similar to the eared grebe that we had photographed at Medicine Lake the previous year but it was a bit different.

This was the first time that I had seen horned grebe in their breeding plumage. They were not quite as spectacular as the eared grebe were but they were still a beautiful bird. I saw horned grebe in numerous locations around the Twin Cities that spring as they stopped by on their way north during migration. Unfortunately this year, 2009, was not a very good year for spotting migrating waterfowl in southern Minnesota and so I did not see any horned grebe this spring.

Both eared and horned grebe are quite plain when they are in their non-breeding plumage. The picture above is of an eared grebe. It was taken in February at the Elk Horn Slough in central California.

Yellowstone Eared Grebe Monday

We added a couple days on to the beginning of our trip so that we could stop at Medicine Lake to get some pictures of eared grebes in breading plumage. We had taken some wonderful grebe pics last year at Medicine Lake an we hoped to get some more shots this year. If you have bean reading the blog you already know that Medicine Lake NWR was very dry this year and we were not able to get any descent grebe pics. We decided to move on to Bowdoin NWR where we did get some better grebe shots but they still were not up to par with the ones that we got last year, when they swam right under a small bridge that we were parked on and let us get great close up shots. We were a little disappointed, however on our second day in Yellowstone we decided to head over to the fishing bridge area to try and see if we could spot some harlequin ducks that had been spotted the week before.
We did not find any harlequin but while we were there a group of about 6 eared grebe in breading plumage swam right below the bridge and several of them began to dive for fish.
The first thing that crossed my mind was why did I bother stopping in Montana, but even though we got great eared grebe shots in Yellowstone it was worth it to stop at Medicine Lake and Bowdoin to see some of the western specialties that we did not see in Yellowstone and do not regularly see at home.
Who knows what we will do next year. Hopefully we will be able to take our annual trip to Yellowstone, although by that time it is possible that we will not be able to afford gas for any other then getting to work. If we do go next year we will need to decide if we want to make any stops or whether we would rather spend more time in Yellowstone. It's a tough choice, good thing we have plenty of time to think about it.

Bowdoin NWR Waterfowl

We arrived at Bowdoin NWR at around 10:30 am. Even though this was our first visit to the refuge we could tell that, like Medicine Lake, it was suffering from a shortage of water. At one point when I was trying to get a bit closer to get a better shot I found myself standing on a bed of silt that should have been part of the lake bottom.

Even with the lower water levels we still found a few waterfowl and shorebirds around.

Lesser scaup
northern shoveler
eared grebe

We were quite happy to see some eared grebe in breeding plumage in pools that were close to the road. The eared grebes where one of the main reasons that we planned our visit to Medicine Lake. When we did not get great looks at Medicine Lake we were kind of disappointed but photographing them at Bowdoin made up for it. I saw quite a few horned grebes, in breeding plumage, as they passed through this year but the eared grebe are usually pretty scarce in Minnesota.

Medicine Lake waterfowl and waders

While browsing the Internet several months ago I came across a site of a photographer who had gotten some great pics of eared grebe in breeding plumage. I was fascinated by the shots and fortunately for me the website listed that the photographs had been taken at Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge in early June. So I did some research and found that Medicine Lake was located in Montana near the North Dakota border. Since we were planning on going back through Montana and North Dakota on our way back from Yellowstone we made a plan to make a one day side trip to Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
Medicine Lake is a pretty flat refuge with only a few slight rolling hills and even fewer trees. The two areas that have any trees to speak of are the area around the headquarters and the picnic area where the only bathroom, outhouse style, is located. The Picnic area is where we spotted the great horned owls and their nest. The majority of the park is Medicine Lake and the adjacent smaller lakes which are managed through a series of damns and dikes. We found a lot of waterfowl and waders on the small lakes and potholes.

We saw a few american avocet wading through the shallows, their heads were rusty red with the breeding plumage.
Mixed in with the avocets we saw a couple of marbled godwit.
There were quite a few Killdeer both on the shore of the lake and scouring the dirt roads.
The Wilson's Phalarope were also in breeding plumage. They swam, mostly in pairs, in tight circles close to the shore of the smaller lakes.
The eared grebe where in breading plumage and were magnificent. There were quite a few of them around.

About 10 of them swam under a small bridge that we were parked on giving us perfect views and marvelous pictures.


There was also a pair of western grebe near the highway on Medicine Lake.
We also got some good shots of several types of ducks.

They included ruddy ducks,

northern pintails
northern shoveler
and blue-winged teal.

After a day full of clouds on Friday as we drove across Montana, the weather on Saturday was perfect. The great weather, the owls, the eared grebes, and all the great shots that we got helped to make up for some of the things that we missed, and the bad weather that we had in Yellowstone. We also saw a few prairie birds in the fields surrounding the lake but I will include them in my next Medicine Lake post.