Читать книгу Birds of Manitoba - Ernest Thompson Seton - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Summer resident chiefly of the shallow, fish-frequented lakes to the northward. Winnipeg: Summer resident; very rare; only 4 specimens taken up to 1885 (Hine). Breeding in considerable numbers at Shoal Lake; comparatively rare in Red River region (D. Gunn). Specimen from Red River settlement in Smithsonian Institution (Blakiston). Breeds abundantly in the marshes of Waterhen River and south end of Waterhen Lake, where I took great numbers of its eggs (Macoun). Duck Mountain; breeding (Thompson).

On June 18, 1884, while hunting at Duck Mountain, above Boggy Greek, with my brother, we came to a small lake and parted to go around it in different directions. When we met, he showed me a nest which he had found among the reeds in 2 feet of water. It was a mere floating mass of wet rushes, and had been moored by a few growing rushes whose tops had been incorporated with the structure. It contained 3 eggs, which the bird was hastily covering with more rushes when he first saw her. From his description, and from what I could see at 200 yards distance, it was apparently an adult Red-necked Grebe, but the bird was too shy to admit of the identification being completed in the only perfectly reliable way.

As there are no fish in these isolated mountain lakes, these birds probably live largely on amblystomæ, crawfish, and insects.