Saturday Summer Speaker Series plans program on ‘Those Amazing Dancing Grebes’
- Lake County News reports
- Posted On
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – On Saturday, Aug. 26, Redbud Audubon will present a program at 1 p.m. at the Clear Lake Park Visitor Center about the chapter’s ongoing conservation project for Western and Clark's grebes.
These water birds are loved for their amazing courtship displays where they “dance” in synchronized pairs across the surface of Clear Lake.
During incubation, the male and female share duties of sitting on the nest and once the chicks are born, the parents carry them on their back for the first weeks of life. A video and photos will be shown during the presentation of these behaviors.
Marilyn Waits, the presenter, is a former vice president of Bank of America in San Francisco and relocated to Lake County with her husband in 1996.
She managed the Woodland College Small Business Development Center for seven years until the grant program ended in 2003.
She was president of Redbud Audubon for eight years and has managed the grebe project since its inception in 2010.
The goal of this three-chapter Audubon conservation project is to educate the public on ways to protect Grebe colonies.
Steps can be taken by boaters and fishermen to avoid disrupting the grebe colonies and endangering their reproduction.
Valuable research is conducted by Dr. Floyd Hayes, head of the Biology Department at Pacific Union College. He and his student interns monitor the number of grebes and their colonies and nests each year.
Entry fee to the park is waived for the presentation. The presentation takes place at the visitor center.
For more information, contact the park office at 707-279-2267.