I've seen one kind of grebe, the Pied-billed Grebe. Honestly, though, I am completely clueless about water birds. These were a long way away. We looked through the spotting scope and marveled at how much better it was than plain binoculars, but even so, it looked like any duck to me.
I have been reading Kenn Kaufman's classic and wonderful book Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder, about his trip around the US in 1973 in search of the record for the longest bird list for a year. Today I decided to write some found haiku from Kaufman's work. (I'm not sure found haiku is even a thing.)
Here are the two pages from the book which were my sources. After the poem I'll post a Pied-billed Grebe (the one I've seen) and a Western Grebe (the one Kaufman is writing about).
Grebes in Summer
Grebes, background music,
floating nests out in plain sight,
surface of water
Limited by time
life list of mortality
everything will end
Found by Ruth Bowen Hersey
in Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman
Pied-Billed Grebe from eBird.com
Western Grebe from eBird.com
1 comment:
Ruth... yes, I saw a family of western grebes in WY. They are rather small and their coloring makes them easy to identify. Loved seeing them! Thanks for your found poem... a cool idea.
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