Category: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

When we missed our opportunity to visit Mono Lake, California, this summer I thought I’d also missed my chance to see Eared Grebes in breeding colors this year since Mono Lake is one of their main breeding areas. I didn’t realize that they also breed in Utah’s Great Salt Lake, and Big Bear River is at the north end of the lake.

Although I mostly saw Clark’s Grebes at Big Bear, it was a pleasant surprise when I saw a small flock of Eared Grebes on my second trip around the auto tour.

The first time I saw these bird up close in breeding colors a few years ago I was shocked by the bright red eye and the “ear” plumage which makes the eye stand out, and I’m still fascinated by the distinctive plumage.

I rarely see Eared Grebes, so it’s definitely a treat when I do get a chance to see them, particularly in breeding colors.

I was surprised to learn that they are the most abundant grebe, something I would never have guessed since I commonly see Pied Grebe, Horned Grebe, Red-Necked Grebe, Western Grebe and Clark’s Grebe in the Puget Sound areas but have yet to see an Eared Grebe.

One moment you think you really need to stay focused on a particular area to truly understand a particular phenomena; the next moment you realize you need to go to other places to put things in proper perspective. I’ll need at least another seventy years of retirement to learn all the things I want to learn.

I was disappointed that I didn’t see many Western or Clark’s Grebes at Malheur when I was there, but I shouldn’t have worried because it was one of the first birds I saw at Bear River, almost before the sun rose.

I’m so used to seeing Western Grebe in the Puget Sound region, like this one

that it took me awhile to realize that most of the grebes I were seeing were actually Clark’s Grebes, which look like this one.

To the untrained eye, they look the same, but the black topknot descends lower on the Western Grebe, and its bill is a subtle greenish-yellow, not bright orange. Of course, Stokes points out that the two varieties also interbreed, so it’s not always that easy to distinguish one from the other.

Luckily, both varieties are equally beautiful. I had hoped that I would either see pairs performing mating dances or see mothers carrying the chicks on their back, but apparently I was too late for the former and too early for the latter.

So I had to settle for shots like this of romantic pairs that obviously wanted to be close to each other,

while I was there,

but didn’t seem too interested in dancing up a storm for me. Damn.

The biggest disadvantage to visiting far away places is that you have only one chance to see birds, and it’s very hard to figure out when they will be mating or having babies. I worried that I would be too late to get shots of young Avocets, but it turned out they were just beginning to nest, much less have chicks. That wouldn’t be problem near home; I would be able to predict when I needed to get back by what I saw on my visit. I’m probably not going to get back to Big Bear until Fall, if then. By then most of the birds will have already left. I won’t really have much chance of seeing most of them before next summer, a long ways off.

I didn’t go to Bear River to get pictures of Snowy Egrets. I can find them much nearer than that, but somehow I still filled up a lot of my memory card with shots of them. They are such a striking bird that I can’t imagine not pointing my camera at them when they’re around.

I doubt I’ll ever get better closeups than the shots I got in Santa Rosa in the last few years, but somehow that doesn’t seem to make these shots any less beautiful.

Ignoring a Snowy Egret as it stalks a pond

because you’ve already seen one stalking a pond would make about as much sense as ignoring a beautiful girl in a bikini walking down the beach because you’ve seen one before.

It doesn’t hurt if you can manage to capture them in a different pose,

one that manages to show a different side of their beauty. I suspect Snowy Egrets have thrived because they’ve mastered the art of killing, stalking their prey like some ninja warrior, striking with a suddenness

that chills the bones.