Where have the Eared Grebe’s gone?

One of my favorite winter residents of the lake is the Eared Grebe. It’s a small diving water bird (most closely related to Flamingos) that is flightless much of the year. The males turn into demonic looking birds just before they head out for mating season in the Spring. If your lucky, you can also sometimes glimpse their forays underwater. Their favorite food seems to be the the Bay Pipefish which seem to provide the grebes a run for their money.

The pipefish seem to be getting a reprieve this year with no Eared Grebe’s in their “traditional” hunting grounds (aka the spots I’ve seen them in over the past few years). I had seen one Eared Grebe on the lake near the bird islands earlier this year, but I have not seen it since. Things have been left to the Pied-billed Grebes, an equally cute species but which seems to mostly confine itself to the the refuge area on the northern side of the lake. Eared Grebes in my observations have favorite spots dotted around the lake. Last year, I’d remarked a trio showing up by the pedestrian bridge at the Southern end of the lake in early October where they could be reliably found for months after.

There seems to have been some e-Bird sitings over the last couple of days, so perhaps they are still to arrive. I did note, however, the week they arrived last year would have coincided with the fires in Sonoma and Napa. With the air quality so bad, I wonder if the birds thought better of flight, and decided to stick it out where they are. According to my Bay Area Birds (David Lukas, 2012), Eared Grebe’s make great use of the South Bay Salt Ponds, and nest down in the Hayward.

Data in my various sources of citizen science data (iNaturalist and eBird) seems too thin to make any kind of call on that hypothesis. And at the end of the day, I hope they still show up.