A Tale of Two Caps

Welcome to the month that usually makes me take a hard swallow after flipping the page. June is ramp up month for the ultra season and the calendar is full of two-a-days each consisting of 10+ mile runs intermixed with 25+ mile endurance runs all to round off the preparation for the 30 mile Cry Me a River that has officially dropped me twice now, most recently last year (link here). My hopes of a quick redemption have been curtailed and the calendar has been wiped clean to be replaced with medical appointments starting with the ankle MRI this week. I did get a good 8 mile run in this morning to put a likely cap on the season. In light of the fast approaching downtime, I’ve also been trying to hit the birding hard. This last weekend was quite awesome on the feather front. My brother Ron came down on Friday and we got a good start on some local field birding before another Intrigued birding event on Saturday. Ron, Brad, Jan, myself and the rest of the Intrigued staff got a chance to spend a great day in the field – except the Legal Department who are still on probation from their last little stunt. Suspect there will be a write-up coming on that outing in the future. Bookended the weekend with another outing with Ron down at Emiquon NWR. My Average Year count now sits at a shocking 382+3 (previous record was 340) and Ron managed to add ~35 birds to his tally. Brad/Jan and Ron are also now up in the top 40 county birders and neither of them live in this county ha.

To make up for the loss of the double run schedule in June, let’s go with a twofer for today’s featured feathered friend(s) post.

Hit the jump to read more about this species of waterfowl and a very similar looking family member.

If you happen to live in the West or get out there frequently enough, you may be able to quickly tell this is a member of the Grebe family. For those that tend to limit their roaming to the east, then you might be confused trying to rationalize this rather full-bodied species with their smaller cousins like the Pied-Billed or Horned. Note those just in south Texas are likely really confused with looking at their more common Least Grebe residents. I can confirm, they are all members of the Podicipedidae family (trying saying that family name 3 times fast!).

The Western Grebe prefer to spend their non-breeding time on the west coast and I mean pretty much just on the coast with little interest going too far into the mainland. As the frisky season comes into play, they can fan out east as far as Wisconsin with a big push north into Canada. They seem to hold a grudge for some reason on the southwestern states like Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Note, they do have a year-round residency in Central America.

We managed to find these Westerns hanging out at Lake Mead National Recreational Area in Las Vegas, NV while visiting there back in January 2024. Yes, a bit contrary to the regional maps from Cornell, but if you look at the Sightings Map (just to the right of the default Range Map on Cornell’s Maps page) you will see plenty of sightings outside their stated regions – what gives Cornell, clearly you have conflicting data and those do not all look like one-offs?

I can assure you that Lake Mead has plenty of Western Grebes in January as we have seen them reported there for several years. This is the first time we finally made an effort to get out there…or rather was there long enough to catch all of our normal hotspots and several new places like this recreational area. The chosen location was called 33 Hole Scenic Overlook which is on their main drive through the area (link here). This is a mesa that overlooks the Las Vegas Bay area of Lake Mead. The absolute shocker was that website mentions that when Mead was full, the water would come to the edge of that three-pronged picnic area. That is NOT the case now even with the recovery Lake Mead has had as of late. I included a panoramic video I took at the end of this post which gives you a good feeling for what it looks like now.

I took the trail that leads down from the 33 Hole picnic area all the way to the water’s edge. Not that bad of a hike down, rocky and some loose areas along the way, but coming back you’ll get a good cardio workout in – not to mention a brutal beat down from the sun. Once down on the bottoms there is good viewing of the water with some vegetation to maneuver around (hint, look for the Bushtits while down there). These Western Grebes were still a ways out into the water so apologies for the crop zoom on these.

This is a fee area, so my IpS (Investment per Species) calculation was in play. In truth, there were TWO birds I was hoping to get there to improve the investment calculation and this was the second…

I know what you are thinking “Ummm Bri, you might need to have your eyes checked, that looks like the same bird you just showed us!“. No, no, I am not trying to do some kind of devious sleight of hand on you – trust me, this is clearly a different bird entirely. Well, maybe not “clearly”, but there are some key indicators that reveal this nearly twin to the Western’s called the Clark’s Grebe. The Western is actually not a new bird for me as we would see those on our Yellowstone visits many a year ago and even posted about an encounter at Henderson back in 2013 (link here).

This Clark’s is definitely new and part of that is due to their relatively small numbers compared to the Westerns they like to hang out with. Typically you see reports of 30 to 40 or even more of the Western Grebes and then relatively few Clark’s at the same spot – maybe in the 5 to 10 range. Your mission should you chose to accept it is to spot the Clark’s in the midst of the Westerns. How do you do this..well, there are two methods I rely on, one in my opinion better than the other.

Take a look at the black cap on the Clark’s picture above compared to the Westerns earlier in the post. Did you notice an admittedly subtle difference? The black cap on the Clark’s head stops short of the eye. The Western’s cap in contrast extends below the eye. This is one of the few times I routinely “chimp” at the back of the camera display. Snap, check the cap, snap, check the cap, snap check the cap until the “holy shit” moment when you get a definite shortened cap and quickly announce to anyone within earshot “who has two thumbs and a Clark’s Grebe…this guy“.

As mentioned, there is one other way to visually distinguish these two Grebes and that is by bill color. The Clark’s has a brighter yellow-orange bill and the Western’s have a dull olive tinted yellow bill. I’ll pause here and let you do your own comparison between the images I’ve provided for both species {cue Jeopardy theme music}. Soooo, what do you think, would you be able to make that distinction in the field? If you definitively said yes, I salute you. If you said maybe, then you are where I am at, but I can say that having them both here for comparison makes it a lot easier to notice that color change versus in the field – especially in lower light. Stick with the cap and you will be fine…well…mostly fine.

I did run into some issues simply relying on the cap – essentially when the cap line is not definitively above or below the eye line. I guess by definition that is really just one condition – when the cap crosses directly through the eye as in the image below.

In this situation, I probably would make the call based on the bill being a bit more yellow-orange and label it as a Clark’s. Alternatively I’d probably just put in the “no clue” folder and move on for a better specimen. For another example, take the shot below…Clark’s, Western’s, Mutant Ninja Turtle?

Bit hard to see the eye, but the cap does slice through the upper part of the eye, but now the lighting is a bit flat so the distinction in the bill isn’t that apparent – Michelangelo it is ha!

Okay, I am throwing in this next shot as it was my favorite from that entire day. I call it the presidential escort. I wish I would have tried increasing the fstop..or decreasing it depending on how you want to handle the 1/fstop situation, in order to get that bottom Grebe in better focus.

“We got you covered Mr. President from all angles!”

Almost out of shots, better get to some interesting facts stat. It is probably no surprise that the Clark’s and Western’s were once considered the same species, but they were separated 1985 – bird listers around the world rejoiced in unison. According to Cornell, it was discovered they have different DNA, different calls and don’t mix their bootie calls. Oh, forgot to mention, their calls are different which is a third distinction beyond the two visual ones that were discussed. These Grebes also have a very elaborate courtship which looks like a water ballet as they synchronize run across the water holding their necks in giant shaped ‘S’s. The other Grebes on the water then hold up placards with a numbers ranging from 0-10 that indicates their chances of marital bliss. I swear I have no idea where they put those placards when they are not judging.

Just to give you the full perspective, here is a shot from behind that shows that black cap extending all the way down the back of the neck – Mr. T pities the fool that steals his look.

Apologies, but I was unable to find any explanation for the name 33 Hole Overlook and I definitely gave it a good attempt. What I do have is a panoramic view that I shot while we were up there this last April. While you are viewing this, think back to the comment about the water being near the level where I was standing when it was full. You will see the water as I pan to the right. The trail down goes straight out from the observation walkway area and basically follows the fault line as it wraps around the large mesa about halfway down.

That’s all for today folks. Will let you know how the MRI and doctor follow-up turns out. Oh, quick admission – I am purposely behind on a lot of my post reading as I plan to take those in to keep my spirits up if I’m ordered off my ankle this week.