Eared Grebe, Lake Julian, NC, December 15, 2020

When I moved to western NC in August 2019 I developed a list of possible new NC statebird targets.  The list had 36 species that were reported on at least 1% of checklists in any week of the year in the 15 westernmost NC counties.  In October 2020 I added Mourning Warbler to my NC statelist which was the 35th of these targets.  Only Long-tailed Duck remains from my initial target list.  That pretty much means that any further additions to my NC list in the mountains will be rare for the region – some rarer than others.

And one of those rarer species was discovered on 12/15, starting with this text from Aaron Steed on the Blue Ridge Birders text list– “Probable Eared Grebe at Lake Julian”.  I was already heading out the door minutes later when Aaron confirmed the ID as the first eBird record for Eared Grebe in Buncombe County.  And only the 4th record for western NC.

When I arrived at Lake Julian I was surprised to not find any other birders.  I would have thought that a bird this rare would have attracted lots of folks.  I set up my scope and started scanning the lake.  A distant flock of about 60 Ring-billed Gulls with a Bonaparte’s was nice, but the only diving waterfowl I could find were 2 Ruddy’s and a Bufflehead.  Just then another birder came by who had seen the Grebe earlier.  He recounted how it was actually quite close feeding in a small arm of the reservoir right in front of us.  And then right on cue a Grebe swam by practically at our feet.  I was about to check it off as a new statebird when I looked at it in my binocs and realized it was just a Horned Grebe, not yet reported at the lake that morning.  That certainly complicates things.  I looked back at the Grebe to make sure, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t turn it into the Eared Grebe. 

Then Bob Butler came by.  He too had seen the target bird earlier and described how it was feeding along the edges of the reservoir arm, rather than toward the middle.  Plus it was diving often.  So I did a very slow scan of the water edges but came up empty.  If it was preferring the edges of this arm of the reservoir, I wondered if it had moved on to the edges of another arm of water.  There is another larger arm just to the east, so I walked over in that direction and started to scan.  On a first scan I didn’t find anything on the water.  Then on a next pass I spotted a Grebe along the far shore which dove just after I spotted it.  It was too short a view to see many field marks, and certainly not enough to tell if I had my target, or whether it was just the Horned Grebe.  It popped up about 25 seconds later, and on this brief view before it dove I noticed that the back end of the bird appeared “fluffy” with expanded feathers on its flanks.  The next time it came up I got a better view and could see darker cheeks and longer, thin neck – I had the Eared Grebe.  Unfortunately it was too far, and spent too little time above water, for a phonescoped photo.  Here’s a photo of the arm of the lake where it fed, and in fact where it continued at least until the end of December.

Eared Grebe was #310 for my NC list – the 7th eastern state where I’ve seen this species as a rarity.  This western species is certainly known for its vagrancy in the east.  The blue states are those where I’ve seen it across its regular range in the west, with cross-hatched Missouri as the last state where I still need it in its regular range.