Probable Red-necked Grebe - Walker Pit - Douglas county

[Hugh Kingery]

Urling and I just spent a half hour looking at a probable Red-necked Grebe, at the far north side of the Walker gravel pit near Franktown.

It had the shape of an RNGR, with a particularly noticeable long, pointed, dagger-like, yellow to yellow-orange bill. Size of a goldeneye but slimmer. General pattern matches the winter adult.

Its Ggay cap fades to whitish below the eye. We looked for & could not pick out a whitish vertical patch behind the eye. Gray-black back; whitish breast when it rose to wave its wings. But also: a white wing patch that showed consistently; RNGRs have white secondaries but none of the field guides show that on a bird on the water.

It resembles the winter adult shown in an Eastern Peterson field guide that we have.

It floated along the water, dove occasionally and caught food.

Hugh Kingery

[Hugh Kingery]

The grebe resembled the winter immature shown in the eastern Peterson field guide (not the adult).

Hugh