18 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVIII 
days, when they disappeared as suddenly as they had come. They were 
noted with interest by a party of Eared Grebes who turned their heads to 
look longer at the strangers as they swam by. The visitors were generally 
so wet from constant diving that it was hard to tell their dry colors, and 
their water soaked crests were so flattened that they looked round headed. 
Their chestnut necks, however, were diagnostic. In strong sunlight their 
horns were intensely white, so white that they made a shining mark across 
the water. 
The last time I saw the visitors, the bay that they had frequented, red 
with sunset light, was dotted with feeding Ducks and Gulls, but the little 
Grebes were apparently through feeding for the night and looked dry and in 
good form as they swam along close to shore, their crests dimly outlined in 
the fading light. 
There was no good Grebe nesting ground on my section of Stump Lake, 
but on a small pond near another part of the lake we saw an Eared Grebe 
brooding eggs. She watched our approach nervously with crest down, cran- 
ing her neck till it was long, slim, and snaky, as she peered this way and that 
trying to decide whether to go or stay. When her photograph had been taken, 
she dropped off the nest. As we stood quiet she soon returned and, with her 
hampering lobed feet, walked awkwardly around the rim of the nest before 
reseating herself. When we walked closer she rose and with rapid motions 
of the bill pulled some of the warm bedding over her eggs and then again 
dropped off into the water. 
Later in the season, the last of July, on Lake Elsie we found a colony of 
Eared Grebes still brooding eggs. It was in the tule marsh at the end of the 
lake where the Loons and Holboell Grebes lived. To reach it we had crossed 
the lake in such a heavy wind that it was hard rowing across the white caps, 
and even the quiet water of the open marsh, generally alive with Coots, Grebes, 
Teal, and other Ducks, was deserted for the better windbreak of the tules. 
As we poled through the narrow tule lanes with their dark green walls, calls 
and cries and excited talk arose ; but few of the inhabitants were seen except 
an occasional Coot swimming hastily away from the bow of the boat, a pair 
of Blue-winged Teal, and a handsome Buddy Duck — well deserving the 
name — who swam off down a tule lane followed by his mate and five half- 
grown ducklings. But at a turn of the boat we found ourselves in a colony 
of Eared Grebes, and poled up to one nest after another in quick succession 
until we had excitedly counted ten. Each floating nest was anchored in a 
small clump of tules and seemed made of the beautiful water weeds we could 
see over the edge of the boat. All ten of the nests contained eggs, some two, 
some three. About half of the brooding birds had covered their eggs before 
slipping off their nests, and just after we had passed, two solicitous males 
were caught sight of among the nests, perhaps returning to look after uncov- 
ered eggs. 
As we crossed a patch of open water we saw a pair of Yellow-headed 
Blackbirds examining an isolated bunch of tules with suggestive care. 
Deserted nests of a number of other birds were discovered as we poled through 
the shallow tule troughs. One that was taken for the nest of the Loon that 
lived on the lake was of soft materials and pronounced to be in the kind of 
place Loons like, “where they can slip over the edge into the water.” Built 
between green tules was a high compact nest made of brown tules character- 
istic of Coots. When the nose of the boat was snubbed up into a green cul-de- 
