Eared Grebes Courting

Today's weather continued cold (in the 40s F / 6-8 C) as we headed south from Calgary to Waterton National Park (Alberta), which is contiguous with Glacier National Park in Montana.

On the way we stopped at Frank Lake, tipped off by an Englishman whom we met birding yesterday in Calgary. With his directions we found our way to the lake and a wonderful blind (hide in English parlance). From it I blipped this pair of Eared Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis) in a courting display. In Europe they are known as Black-necked Grebes. I had only previously seen grebes in this sort of behavior once very briefly (great crested grebes in France).

Yesterday remains blank, since I'm having software troubles related to my new Canon 7D camera. (For the technically minded, I took all yesterdays bird shots in RAW, and my software can't convert those files since the camera is so new. Today I shot in both RAW and jpegs. I will backblip eventually--a pair of redheads (ducks) ). Stay tuned.

Edit: I have backblipped the redhead pair.