On Reflection

(Western Grebes)

I only came to know Western Grebes up-close and personal after we found our periodic home in Klamath Falls, OR. I had seen many over the years in the distance with their distinct black and white markings that made them an easy checkoff on birding trips. But their story is so much more. 

On trails and outlooks around Klamath Lake, they literally called to me. Embarrassed now, I at first thought those calls were the jingling sounds of early spring frogs or toads eager for mating to begin. With a sureness born of my own ignorance, I would confidently tell friends how much I enjoyed hearing those early amphibian promises of Spring to come. 

Imagine my surprise when, with one squarely scoped, I saw a lusty male pursue and then call with combined bicycle-bell/referee-whistle blasts to a female. And this, of course, is only the beginning of their courtship display, a prelude comprised of more clarion calls and elaborate bobbing and weaving. The show really begins when they line up, parallel in the water, shoulders practically touching, and suddenly burst out of the water in an unnatural standing, S-like posture and speed in tandem across the surface—propelled only by the impossibly frantic slapping of their tiny feet against the water. The performance is repeated, often attracts competing males, and continues with only brief respites.

Somehow things are sorted out and decided, and later, as the season turns, I find them emerging from the safety of their sodden, grassy, lake edge nests, calm and respectable, with little ones safely tucked into their back coverts. Both mom and dad take turns as conveyance while the other fishes for and feeds the little ones. As for the young brood, they pop off their parents’ backs to paddle and poke and hop on again whenever startled. Their life must seem an endless number of Sundays in the park.

Does the fierce urging of Spring
grasp the fullness of birth,
or in that renewal, future’s passion?