{"id":1086,"date":"2013-04-05T09:46:39","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T13:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2025-05-18T20:02:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T00:02:33","slug":"western-horned-pied-billed-red-necked-grebes-toronto-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naturalcrooks.com\/rambles\/western-horned-pied-billed-red-necked-grebes-toronto-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Grebe Day! at Colonel Sam Smith Park in Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

This (2013) has been one of the coldest Aprils in a decade but when it\u2019s sunny I go out, even if it\u2019s partial sun mixed with flurries. My Nikon D5100 is a great camera, but I can only afford the standard 55-300 lens, so unless I can get good light on a subject that\u2019s at 300-range I can\u2019t get any detail in my photos. And if you\u2019ve ever gone birding at Colonel Sam Smith Park, especially for grebes, you\u2019ll know you need clarity at a distance.<\/p>\n

My pretend goal was to get a photo or two of the Red-necked Grebes. Recent birders had posted lovely shots of them in their full summer colours. One shot was even of a pair displaying for each other.<\/p>\n

My not-being-honest-with-myself-goal was really that mysterious Western Grebe. Remember the one I wrote about in Don\u2019t be Grebe-y<\/strong><\/a>? Yes, I secretly wanted to see it just like every other life-lister and big-year birder. And I wanted to get a photo or two with my Nikon, if I could.<\/p>\n

Now the trick with nature photography that you never hear mentioned on National Geographic episodes is that the birds and animals are real. That means that just because YOU are willing to brave -12C windchill and actual real snow squalls to stand on a barren breakwater and take photos, they don\u2019t have to put up with it and pose.<\/p>\n

I found the Western Grebe! and the Red-necked Grebes! and a Horned Grebe!<\/p>\n

And they were all asleep.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the kind of photos REAL nature nuts have to accept:<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
\nRed-necked Grebes snoozing in the sun<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
\nHorned Grebe snoozing in the snow squall<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

Western Grebe giving me the evil eye during its nap.<\/em><\/p>\n

On the other hand, to my pleasure, the little tiny diving bird amidst the flock of Redheads, Scaup, Bufflehead and American Coots, was an awake grebe.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure till I got home, because I was half a km away across blustery water, shooting blindly with the Nikon on autofocus. Then when I got home, I could massively zoom the photo on the computer to find out what I had.<\/p>\n

And again, this is a REAL photo, so it\u2019s too small and blurry and you have to know what the bird book says to look for to figure out what it is. This is a Pied-billed Grebe. (The “large” bird in the back is a Coot. Although if you know Coots<\/strong><\/a>, you’ll know they aren’t very big.)<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have to find out if Pied-billed Grebes nest around here. They have the most adorable zebra-striped chicks.<\/p>\n

Now, because I was patient, even on a day when only one dog-walker (there\u2019s usually dozens) was brave enough to venture out, I did eventually get a few fuzzily-focused photos of the Western Grebe with my Nikon. I also got some photos of the Red-necked Grebes, including one sequence, that\u2019s too far away and too poorly lit to be good, of a pair courting. I\u2019ll share those in later posts. But don\u2019t blame the D5100. A camera is only as good as the Crooks using it.<\/p>\n

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