The Western Grebe 



becoming nest-stained, buffy or sickly green to dingy brown. Av. size 58 x 37 (2.28 

 x 1.457); index 63.7. Season: 1st week in June; one brood. 



General Range. — Western North America, breeding chiefly in the north central 

 interior from central British Columbia, northern Alberta, north central Saskatchewan, 

 and central Manitoba, south to Nebraska, central Utah, and southern California; 

 wintering south chiefly in the Pacific Coast region from southern British Columbia 

 to Jalisco, Mexico, east interiorly to Nevada (Pyramid Lake) and Arizona (Gila River). 



Distribution in California. — Common winter resident and migrant along the 

 coast and upon all larger interior bodies of water. Breeds regularly on Eagle Lake, 

 Rhett Lake, and Lower Klamath Lake, and irregularly south to Merced Lake (San 

 Francisco County) and even San Jacinto Lake; probably also at various points tributary 

 to the San Joaquin and Sacramento basins in Tulare Lake and Buena Vista Lake, and 

 in northern Mono County. Non-breeding birds linger along the ocean front through- 

 out the summer, south to San Diego. 



Authorities. — Newberry (Podkeps occidentalis), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. 

 vi., 1857, p. no (San Pablo Bay); W.E. Bryant, Auk, vol. ii., 1885, p. 313 (probable 

 identity of Podkeps occidentalis and P. clarkii); Finley, Condor, vol. ix., 1907, p. 97, 

 figs, (breeding colonies at Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lake) ; Bent, U. S. Nat. Mus., 

 Bull. no. 107, 1919, p. 1, pis. (life hist.); Forbash, Massachusetts Dept. Agric, Bull. 

 no. 8, 1922, p. 6 (under-water progression). 



PERHAPS the most favored region for the study of this most inter- 

 esting bird lies within the protected areas of our northern Californian 

 lakes, notably Lower Klamath Lake. Here the small remnant which 

 managed to escape the ruthless pursuit of the plume-hunters, active as 

 late as 1906, is gradually reoccupying the wastes of oozy channels and 

 tule islands which have been from time immemorial their peculiar home. 

 But in the still undevastated interior of British Columbia and Alberta 

 similar conditions of cover exist, so that the breeding populations of these 

 countries also, driven forth in winter, fall back upon our southern coasts. 

 It is rather, therefore, as a winter visitant along the kelp-line offshore, 

 in lagoons, and on the larger interior lakes, that the Western Grebe is com- 

 monly known to Californians. 



The fall arrivals are somewhat unsophisticated, and will permit us to 

 drift up close enough to observe the cruel blood-red eye which appro- 

 priately accompanies the javelin beak. The necks of these birds are 

 very mobile and their heads are scarcely at rest for an instant, save as the 

 gaze is riveted by fear or momentary curiosity. If fishing is dull and the 

 observer on his good behavior, the company will float at ease rather than 

 excite itself to pull away; and now and then a bird will seek relief by 

 reaching upward and outward with one of its green paddles and wagging 

 it vigorously, — apparently with no intended slight. 



Fish form the principal diet of these grebes, and in the pursuit of 

 them the birds exhibit great dexterity. Schools of herring and the like 



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