My alarm goes off at 4 AM and I am up and out of bed in seconds. Minutes later I am in my truck driving north in the darkness of another beautiful spring morning. The stars are still shinning and the moon is full and setting in the western sky. As I drive north, the eastern sky starts to glow orange and red. I have a feeling of anticipation in my stomach, or was that hunger, I’m not sure.

Two and a half hours later we are backing the boat into the lake. My good friend and fellow photographer Buck Huber and I are heading out on a large lake in Central Minnesota to photograph one of the most exciting courtship dances of all the North American birds—Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis).

The Western Grebe is a large long-necked water bird that has a black cap and a two tone neck– black in the back and white in the front. It has a deep red eye and a long narrow yellowish green bill. They range from western Minnesota and the Dakotas as far west as Oregon and California and as far south as Colorado.

But I am not here to photograph a bird sitting around in the water. No, I am here for the “rush” and the “dance”. So right about now you are thinking, what the heck is this guy taking about? The Western Grebe is a bird with a highly unusual mating ritual. About a week after the ice leaves the northern lakes, flocks of Western Grebes migrate back to lakes where they have been breeding for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years.

They are colonial nesters which mean hundreds of pairs of birds all nest in the same area. In many instances their nests are only 5 to 6 feet apart. Nests are located in cattails and bulrush along lakeshores. Each nest is constructed with the dead aquatic plants from last year. Nests are a flat mat of floating vegetation that holds up to four off-white eggs in a shallow cup. These birds are monogamous and it’s unknown if they mate with the same partner each season.

Now here comes the fun part. Western Grebes are well known for their many and spectacular displays. In fact they have so many displays I can’t write about them all so I will limit it to the most obvious. First is the rush. When a male and female are apart for a short period of time, usually one is off fishing, upon returning they will greet each other with several loud calls. As they swim closer together their heads get low to the surface of the water and they ratchet their heads back and for. Suddenly they both spring from the water’s surface and run across the water, with their necks extended straight up and their heads cocked at an angle so their bills are pointing upward. Their wings are head open over their backs and using their extremely large feet, they run across the waters surface, side by side for up to 20 feet before they slow down and dive head first into the water. The rush is over.

After the rush, the birds resurface and only now and then, maybe only one in 50 rushes, do they follow up with one more remarkable display—the weed dance. Both birds will dive to the bottom of the lake and pick up some green plants. Resurfacing they swim together and once again rise up out of the water, stretching their necks upwards and as if they are presenting the gifts to one another.  They shake and turn their heads back and forth as if to say look at what I brought you. This lasts about 20 seconds and they drop the weeds and swim off together. Wow, now that is a display.

I remember as a kid in the 1960’s watching this very scene on a nature program on our black and white TV, and thinking how cool it looked and that some day I would like to see it. And now that I am watching it in person, I’m thinking it’s even better in color. I have traveled to this colony of Western Grebes 4 times over the past 2 weeks and was only really successful at capturing these amazing images on just one of the trips. All total I spent 25 to 30 hours crouched over in the boat hiding in the weeds to get these images, not including drive time, but I think it was well worth it. Until next time…