A fine example
There are lots of birds that at first sighting might make for embarrassing identifications. Certainly a male and a female mallard do not, at first glance, look as if they would be of the same species. Neither do male and female northern harriers, black-chinned hummingbirds, mountain bluebirds, western tanagers, Bullock’s orioles, nor red crossbills, to name just a few.
Admit it, haven’t you spent time, early in the season, trying to figure out what a female red-winged blackbird should be identified as after already adding a male to your list for the day? They just don’t look enough alike to be of the same species.
The same can be said for adults versus juveniles. In many species, the young of the year may bear faint resemblance to the coloring of their parents. The bald eagle, California gull, white-crowned sparrow and brown-headed cowbird come to mind.
Among the loons and the grebes, one could make a similar mistake by identifying individuals at different times of the year. As an extreme example, compare a summer horned grebe in your field guide with its winter counterpart. If one couldn’t watch it change, who would ever guess that it was the same bird? Its head doesn’t even appear to be the same shape.
We don’t usually have the opportunity to check out summer horned grebes firsthand in North Idaho. They winter here, despite what the field guides indicate, and often in large numbers, but seldom will we ever get to see one in breeding plumage. They are winter-only residents. The same goes for the common loon, except that perchance we might get to see a breeding plumage bird in late spring or early fall as the migrants move through.
Again, despite what the range maps of the field guides show, there is a grebe that both summers and winters here. It is one of the largest of the grebes, and in the summer, one of the showiest. It is the red-necked grebe. Now, being from North Idaho, I have to restrain myself here from trying some bad jokes about its name. You may fill in the blanks if you’d like.
Yes, the red-necked grebe is a fine example of a species that so dramatically changes its plumage between seasons that it could easily be confused for two different species, summer versus winter. It is as dramatically colorful in the summer as it is bland in the winter. The only thing that does not change is the yellow of its daggerlike beak. And we are fortunate in North Idaho to be able to find the red-necked grebe throughout the year.
Referring again to the field guides, you’d not expect this to be the case. You’d expect breeding red-necks – will you be offended if I call them that? – to be found only in Alaska and Canada. Again, the joke possibilities are almost too much to bear. And you’d expect wintering red-necks to be only on the coast. That’s what the maps show.
Of course, grebes can’t read maps and ornithologists, I guess, don’t bother to come to North Idaho, because the grebes are here, month after month, year after year. In 2001 I spent the year aggressively birding Kootenai County, trying to locate every species that either lived in or passed through the county. Without difficulty, I spotted red-necked grebes in every month of the year. So, get out your markers and adjust those range maps.
It is true that the vast majority of these ducklike grebes are found to the north in breeding season, and are on the coast in winter. But, besides the Lake Coeur d’Alene and Pend Oreille Lake red-necks, these grebes can be found on the larger lakes and Columbia River reservoirs of the six northeastern-most counties of Washington and in the Klamath Basin of southwestern Oregon. The range map in the “National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fourth Edition” does show, if you get out your magnifying glass, these summer distributions.
On a larger scale, red-necked grebes are found throughout the northern hemisphere, breeding in central and southeastern Europe and in southeastern Asia. In all of these areas, the three-part general rule applies that red-necked grebes breed in freshwater lakes and deep-water marshes with sufficient vegetative cover around the edges for nest concealment. The second part of the rule states that they winter in salt water bays and estuaries. The third part is that they migrate between the two each spring and fall.
In North Idaho, however, rules two and three don’t apply. I guess that our water must be just right for them. And grebes are built for the water to an extent that is found in few others. Their food is in the water, and is captured in large part by diving. If alarmed, they dive rather than fly. Their elaborate spring courtship rituals are performed on the water. They build a floating nest. Their young, fresh out of their eggs, can swim and dive, or ride in boatlike fashion on their parent’s back.
Grebes have bones that are denser than most birds, other than loons, to decrease their buoyancy. They have the ability to squeeze the air out of their feathers and air sacs, also to decrease buoyancy. They have oil glands to waterproof their feathers. They have eyes specially adapted to see under water. They can slow their heart rate and store extra oxygen in their muscles for when they are not breathing under water. They have legs set as far back on the body as possible to reduce drag and to act as propellers. And they have uniquely lobed feet that act as extremely proficient paddles.
All of these adaptations are for efficient diving. They give grebes the unique ability to slowly sink out of sight like a submarine submerging, to swim along with only their eyes above water like a submarine’s periscope, or to shoot through the water after prey like a torpedo, which is the shape they resemble under water.
So well adapted for water are grebes, that they are helpless on land, have great difficulty becoming airborne when flight is necessary and are laborious and weak fliers. In fact, a grebe may spend its whole summer or winter without ever taking to flight, and should it ever have the misfortune to mistake a wet parking lot for a pond, will not be able to take off again even if it survives the landing. It’s a wonder that they can migrate at all. No wonder our red-necked grebes stay put the year-round.
Several summers ago we were boating on Hayden Lake which for me, not being a water-type person, made for a rather stressful afternoon. To humor me, the family agreed to ease the boat into a weed-choked cove for me to have a look for shorebirds. There were none, but we managed to foul the water intake with weeds and overheat the engine. Once finally free of that mess, we headed out into open water.
Suddenly, a cormorantlike, gull-sized, but black-appearing bird was flying past in the opposite direction. It had large white edges to its wings, but I was stymied. I forced the already bird-intolerant family to turn the boat around and follow at top speed. I was sure I was onto some rarity, some badly misplaced bird from who-knows-where. I was sure of this because I knew that I knew all the local birds too well to be fooled.
We finally caught up just as the bird dropped to the water and disappeared under the surface. There were red-necked grebes around, but no mystery bird. Then it struck me. I had never before seen a red-necked grebe in flight – or any other grebe in flight, for that matter. And I never have since. As I said, grebes are made to be in water, not above it, just as I am made to be on land and not on water. My family is all too glad to oblige me.
This late in the fall, as the weather turns bad and most of our summer residents have headed south for the winter it’s a good time to start getting out to find what North Idaho lakes have to offer in the winter birding season. In many ways, it’s my favorite time of year to see the lakes – from the shore.
It’s by far the best time to find loons and grebes on both Coeur d’Alene and Pend Oreille lakes. But don’t forget. That large, plain grebe, the one with the long yellow beak, is the same bird you saw in all its breeding season splendor last summer. Don’t spend the afternoon with your nose in your field guide trying to make it into a new species. Remember your experience with that female red-winged blackbird?