Horned grebe
Image copyright by Mark A. Chappell
These elegant little grebes are best appreciated in their flashy breeding plumage, shown at left. The summer-plumaged bird (upper left) was on a small pond on the 'Hydro road' near Churchill, Manitoba. It was a difficult picture to take. The bird was a long way off, it was late in the evening and hence quite dark. I was using a 2X converter, which nullifies autofocus with the 500 mm on the 10D body, and focusing was a challenge. In winter, horned grebes are a more subdued black-gray-white combination without the nifty head plumes, as at right and below (photographed at Bolsa Chica wetlands in coastal Orange County, San Diego, and near Palo Alto (all in California). They look a lot like eared grebes at this time, but have rounder heads, shorter bills, and the hint of a white spot in front of the eye.
