January 9 - Piermont - Western Grebe

In the morning I went into Inwood Hill Park for about an hour and half walk around. As in recent days, it was fairly quiet. The only birds of note were about 20 or so Dark-eyed Juncos feeding along the main path up through the Clove. Then it was home and a quick trip to the farmers market.

In the afternoon Ann and I made a run up to Piermont in Rockland County on the west side of the Hudson to look for the Western Grebe  found there by John Haas a couple of days ago. There had been posts on the internet the bird was being seen today, so we were very hopeful. Driving out the pier we stopped as soon as we saw a couple of birders and they were indeed looking at the grebe. It was south of the pier mixed in with some Ruddy Ducks. Later it came in somewhat closer giving us good views in both binoculars and spotting scope. There were also some small rafts of Canvasbacks and a few Greater and Lesser scaups and a Bufflehead. I did get a few pictures of the Western Grebe, but the bird was distant and skies were overcast and threatening, so the light was poor. The pictures are at least recognizable.

Western Grebe 01/09/2016 Piermont.

Western Grebe (with Ruddy Ducks) 01/09/2016 Piermont.