Pied-billed Grebes at Ridgefield
Pied-billed grebes are common at the refuge. They don’t exist in large numbers like some of the other waterfowl, but there are several spots where you might see one up close along the auto tour route at the River S Unit.
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A Reward Paid in Black & White
One reward for spending all of Mother's Day at Ridgefield was a chance to photograph this pied-billed grebe in breeding plumage in Long Lake. These grebes are so commonly seen at Ridgefield that it's a rare visit when I don't spot one, but they are both small and shy and thus have generally eluded my lens. I got some nice pictures of them this winter, but on this day I got my opportunity to photograph one with a pied bill (they only have it in their breeding plumage).
And to top it off it's doing my favorite pied-billed trait, sinking slowly into the water before diving!
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Pied
There is an audio guide that goes along with the auto tour at Ridgefield, and while the audio at this point is difficult to make out it seems to me they suggest that the pied-billed name comes from the black ring on the bill resembling a pie stain (such as you might find ringing a child's mouth after it eats a piece of pie). I'm not sure if I'm not hearing it correctly or if they are being a bit tongue-in-cheek (not that I would ever do such a thing here!), but I believe the name comes from the old English usage meaning black-and-white (as in the magpie), and which eventually came to mean multi-colored.
Thus I think the name is more Pied Piper than Purple Pieman.
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Three Eyes
This is one of a pair of grebes that were fishing a narrow channel at the edge of Rest Lake. This was the larger of the two and the one catching the most fish. They would frequently vocalize to each other and given that this was taken in April, I suspect that the two grebes were a-courtin’.
There are three eyes visible in this picture, the large eye of the grebe and the two eyes of the fish in its beak. The grebe caught a number of fish but for whatever reason it always ate them with its back to me. This one time, however, it momentarily held the fish where I could see it before quickly turning away and swallowing it out of sight.
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Invasive Species Removal
This grebe was doing a little invasive species removal in Rest Lake on a rainy spring day. I was driving on the back half of the auto tour loop when I saw this grebe swimming up ahead with something in its mouth. I couldn't recognize what it was from that distance, but assumed it must be a juvenile bird of some kind. When I got up close, I saw that it was not a bird but a frog, a large species that is not native to Washington.
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Down the Hatch
In this picture, the grebe attempts to swallow the large frog by flipping it up and letting gravity aid the frogs entry down the grebe's extended throat. It wasn't successful on this attempt, but it did manage to swallow it a short while later. A much larger meal than the small fish the grebes often catch, I didn't think there was any way it could down the frog, but soon there was only a webbed foot sticking out of the grebe's bill. There's definitely a little motion blur. I've never seen a grebes neck extended like this, I didn't know they could stretch out that far.
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If I Sound Hoarse …
… it's because I have a frog in my throat. (ba dum)
Proof that the grebe eventually managed to swallow the frog, with only a webbed foot still sticking out. After swallowing even the foot, the grebe swam over to the other side of the channel and sat still for quite some time. I suppose that’s the grebe equivalent of unbuttoning your pants after a Thanksgiving feast.
It was still sitting there when I left.
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The Feather Eaters
This past winter at Ridgefield I was enjoying watching a pied-billed grebe in the little channel beside North Quigley Lake. During the winter you're not supposed to get out of your car on the auto tour, so I was rather startled when my reverie was disturbed by a rap on the window beside me. My first thought was that someone was trying to warn me, perhaps my car was on fire or I was about to be attacked by a wandering bigfoot. But I looked up to see a smiling woman standing patiently outside my car. I rolled down the window and she asked me if the bird I was watching was an eared grebe. I was still a little startled but collected my wits and said no, this was a pied-billed grebe — but in nonbreeding plumage. I'm guessing her bird guide didn't include this plumage, because in this guise they lack the distinctive
black-and-white bill for which they are named.
Another interesting tidbit about pied-billed grebes (and some other grebe species) is that they sometimes eat their small soft feathers when they preen, and also feed them to their young. From what I've read, the thinking is that this helps them regurgitate the parts of their prey that are difficult to digest.
