A look at a tongue of a Western Grebe. Upper K. Lake.

[Howard West]

First I should report on the status of Clark's and Western grebes.

I keep looking for some with babies, but I have not seen any yet this year, looking mostly at Putnam's Point.

About the tongue in the enclosed pic.

In Dec. of 2016 I showed pictures of Robins, Starlings and Cedar Waxwings, with good looks of their hinged tongues that I thought were probably only on berry picking birds.

Today I got a look at the tongue of a W. Grebe, and had not seen this before, with many looks of them calling with their mouths wide open.

I had never even thought about how they swallowed fish, just that they seem to have no problem, except with very large fish.

Their tongue lacks the spikes of the berry picking birds, but appears to work about the same way.

Howard West

Klamath Falls

[Howard West]

A correction about "not having seen their tongues before". I guess I just had not thought about the use of their tongue before.

I looked at a sub folder titled "I said I was hungry"! About half of around 25 frames did show their tongue, but none showed any better detail than the one shown here.

While looking at photos in this folder, I looked at the dates of babies still on their parents backs.

In 2020, June 30 showed some very large babies, as well as some small ones.

Some frames from August 3rd through August 8, 2015 had some large babies still riding on their parents backs.

 So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that while they appear to be late nesting this year, there's still hope!

Howard West