Page:Condor18(1).djvu/19

 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 rpid 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 tale 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 Ruddy Duck--well deserving the name--who swam off down a tale Line 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 rules 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 shpping 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 rules with suggestive care. Deserted nests of a number of other birds were discovered as we poled through the shallow rule 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 rules was a high compact nest made of brow rules character- istic of Coots. When the nose of the boat was snubbed up into a green cal-de-