Special Siting

We had an unusual opportunity to go up to the cabin, in the evening, mid-week. Our cabin is on Lake Isle, about 45 minutes west of Edmonton , Alberta. An opportunity like this almost never happens, but it is great when it does. This area is so quiet when it isn’t the weekend, no boats on the lake, almost non-existent traffic, very few people out and about. When we first arrived we were fortunate to see a blue heron flying overhead and pelicans flapping in the distance over the lake.

As the evening went on we decided to stay the night at the cabin instead of heading home late, and thought an evening drive would be nice. On our drive we spotted this pair of birds, my son tells me that the are Red Necked Grebes.

As we watched the activity around the nest from our car, we noticed one bird stayed close to the nest either sitting on the eggs or what appeared to be checking on the eggs. The other bird was constantly swimming back and forth collecting bits of plants and adding them to the nest.

I was thrilled when I looked at the images and saw that the eggs were actually visible in the pictures. I can honestly say I only have one other set of pictures with eggs in a nest  so this is pretty exciting for me.

The opportunity to watch such activity never would have happened on a busy lake of roaring boats and loud beach goers, luckily our little lake is quiet and allows us a glimpse of the natural world.