Four Eggs in the Grebe’s Nest
The mama Grebe with a nest next to the dock is incubating four eggs. She is patient, and doesn’t seem concerned when we walk to and fro. She sits there and watches, very alert but not alarmed. Occasionally she will swim a short distance from the eggs and on her return will carefully check each each one, tucking a grass in here and there before she adjusts herself carefully into to a sitting position covering them completely with her fluffy white down. Papa stays nearby, finding food and bringing gifts of twigs and leaves to build the floating home sturdier.
The lake shore is teaming with nesting waterfowl and birds. Last evening I watched a pair of American Wigeons emerge from the tall grasses along the shore with three tiny chicks in tow. Another Grebe is incubating eggs further into the cove, and a pair of Tree Swallows have claimed the nest box in the birch tree along the fence.
Ah, Spring……even though it has been cold and windy……life goes on.
More tomorrow,
Gail Niebrugge, Alaska wildlife artist
