July 11, 2012. You could be forgiven for calling a Pied-billed Grebe a funny duck. But it’s not a duck really, it’s a grebe and grebes admittedly do a lot of duck-like things: they swim around, eat sub-aquatic stuff like weeds and fish, and don’t do very well on land. But grebes don’t quack, they don’t have truly webbed feet or wide flat bills; they’re different; and in an evolutionary sense, more primitive.
But the Pied-billed Grebe is nevertheless something of an oddity among grebes. It’s a bit chicken-like in appearance (and size) with a short chicken bill and rather unremarkable, drab, tawny-brown plumage. But what it lacks in film star quality it makes up for with its lunatic courtship call. Pete Dunne explains it well, as follows:”..Calls with a loud wild-sounding keening that incorporates bleating coos and mournful wails.” The eerie yelping calls heard across a marsh, gradually taper off with a series of slowing gulps until it finally seems to run out of breath. It’ll stop you in your tracks.
I found a Pied-billed Grebe today, it was paddling around in a large marina, sorting through floating weeds and rearranging them as if contemplating building a nest. It showed little interest in its surroundings; this parking lot crammed with glossy, millionaires’ plastic boats. I liked it so much that it beat out pairs of Red-necked Grebes, Common Terns and Cliff Swallows all feeding young, as my Bird of the Day.
