Western Grebe

This page is for the Western Grebe (Aechmophoru occidentalis). As I mentioned with the Clark’s Grebe, I was taking shots of a Caspian Tern colony and these grebes kept swimming by, so given the opportunity, I took many pictures. As I started reviewing them, I realized there were two different species, the Clark’s Grebe and the Western Grebe, and sorted accordingly. They look nearly identical except for where the black cap ends on their face. For Clark’s Grebes, it stops just above the eye. For Western Grebes, is stops just below the eye. It is a subtle difference, but make it fairly easy to distinguish between the two species.