My guess would be a raccoon ate the eggs. Cheri Phillips Centennial, CO
On Sunday, July 20, 2014 9:45:24 AM UTC-6, Charles Hundertmark wrote: > > From Wednesday through yesterday morning, Paul Slingsby and I went to > North Park for an RMBO ColonyWatch monitoring trip. On each of those days, > we made a stop at Lake John to track the progress of the Red-necked Grebe > nest. We hoped to find young or perhaps, catch the hatching of eggs. > Instead, we found a mystery. > > On Wednesday, accompanied by YCC volunteer Katie Crain from Arapahoe NWR, > we observed the nest for an hour and a half. Both adults were on or near > the nest off and on during the observation. At one point when both adults > were off the nest, there appeared to be eggs still on the nest. At 5:18 > when we left the lake, the female was on the nest and the male was near. > > On Thursday, along with Nicole Hornslein from the refuge, we briefly > checked the pair in the fog. The male was on the nest and the female > entered the cove before we left. > > Friday evening, a day and a half after our previous visit, we observed for > a little over an hour and a half until well after sunset. The male was on > the nest for just over an hour. After leaving the nest, he attacked a local > coot. Eventually, he left the cove for the open water of the lake where he > remained until we left. The female was not seen the entire time. The nest > appeared empty. > > Saturday morning, we were joined by Lee and Linda Farrell. We first > spotted what we thought was the male on the open water of the lake away > from the nest area. Shortly thereafter, the female was spotted some > distance away from the male. We saw no sign of young near or on the backs > of either adult. A half hour into our observation, we saw a second male > appear near the female. All three birds were in adult breeding plumage. The > pair swam into the cove near the nest, and at one point one carried weeds > toward the nest. Shortly after, they left the cove and remained in the open > water during the remainder of our observation. > > The nest was empty, with no sign of eggs or egg shells and many small > black winged wasplike insects, about flying ant size, were swarming over > the nest surface. Speculations are plentiful, but we have no idea what is > going on now. > > -- > Chuck Hundertmark > 2546 Lake Meadow Drive > Lafayette, CO 80026 > 303-604-0531 > Cell: 720-771-8659 > [email protected] <javascript:> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/0a18ed24-c214-4d40-b1bb-7825a36f81e0%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
