Worth a Thousand Words: Crested Grebe

Crested Grebe
taken by Remo Savisaar

I'm sharing this not only because this bird just doesn't look quite real somehow, but also as a commemoration of the fact that Tom downloaded Peterson's Birds of North America app onto his iPad.

We've been spending a lot of time sitting on our patio in the weekend mornings over coffee and evenings over cocktails while trying to identify bird calls. We've done very little of this but it is a huge help to be able to play the calls to help us narrow things down. And, sometimes, we know there is a bird in the area because they will answer the app.

We also can tell because if we're in the house when Tom's trying one out and it's a local bird ... our big Boxer Wash goes nuts. I should explain that he is self-appointed guardian of keeping all birds and squirrels out of our back yard. And he knows the calls of the most frequent offenders.