Red-throated Loon and Red-necked Grebes

26 April 2014. Oakville ON. I made a couple of what turned out to be really eye-opening stops along the shore of Lake Ontario this afternoon.

The first stop was a pair of sheltered bays either side of the landward end of a long industrial pier, they are good spots to find waterfowl at almost any time of year. Interestingly the species mix is often different from one side to the other. There is a small cove with a white sandy beach on the west side and it was home this afternoon to about 55 Red-necked Grebes who were my Birds of the Day (plural), and one Red-throated Loon (Bird of the Day – singular).

I’ve posted several times about Red-necked Grebes. You’d think I’d get tired of them, but no. They are really quite fascinating (to me anyway). Red-necked Grebes winter along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and by far the majority nest on lakes and ponds across northern Ontario, Canada’s prairie provinces and the north west corner of the continent. But a small, disjunct population (probably no more than a dozen pairs) chooses to breed right here along a very short stretch of the shore of Lake Ontario, favouring marinas and other anthropogenic backwaters especially where kind folks help out by anchoring floating platforms (usually an old tire) on which the grebes then pile nest material. Pile is probably the best term, to say that they build a nest might be embellishing the quality of construction which can be a pretty haphazard sort of an affair.  If its base is well, not up to much, nests are prone to collapse, swamping or otherwise sliding off into the water.

Red-necked Grebes, like many other grebes, as if to make up for their lapses when it comes to construction, go for elaborate courtships. I’ve seen pairs of red-necks swimming fast in tight formation, mirroring each other and driving bow-waves of obsessed devotion ahead of them, and to top it off they bray like possessed donkeys to proclaim their devotion; it’s really quite something.

The Clarke’s Grebe of western North America takes the prize for courtship display, find a moment to watch this fabulous BBC video. Who wouldn’t be smitten by a paramour who could offer you fresh fish and dance like that?

Then there’s the Red-throated Loon, Bird of the Day. While Common Loons are always a pleasure to watch and even worthy of that much overused adjective ’iconic’, and without in any way meaning to undermine Common Loons’ deserved status as birds of the true north, around here a Red-throated Loon makes for a red-letter day. While they’re reported on the Lake Ontario with some regularity, they generally seem to be just passing through. Nesting takes place well north of the Arctic Circle and we usually see them still in their winter plumage; the pale grey head and carmine red throat patch will come in late spring and summer when the birds are on their high Arctic breeding ground; today’s bird still has a long way to go. So generally we see them like this one, mostly grey and whitish, it’s the pointed, up-tilted bill that makes them distinctive and readily identifiable. Loons have the ability to readily take in or displace air from their lungs and flatten air spaces between body feathers to regulate their buoyancy. In the pictures you’ll note how it appears to sit really low in the water.

Those were my Birds of the Day, but there were other stop-you-in-your-tracks moments worth sharing. Hundreds, maybe thousands of swallows coursing over the lake and shore: Tree, Northern Rough-winged and Barn Swallows to be sure, but there could well have been Cliff and Bank Swallows too although I didn’t pick out any. The roof of a large marina-side restaurant held hundreds of mostly Barn Swallows resting or maybe just enjoying the smell of food prepared for the wedding parties going on inside.

And on the break-wall of a harbour entrance, a dozen or so Caspian Terns (perhaps females) sat sharing opinions on the relative appeal of others (perhaps males) who were patrolling around and occasionally returning with a wriggling silver fish, presumably meant to impress. Whether they were duly impressed I don’t know, but I was impressed by them, they have such a gallant air about them.