Between 3:30 and 4:00 this afternoon I watched a Western Grebe preening and diving just off shore at Ashbridges Bay. If you go to the southwesternmost point of the park and then work back two small bays to the east, that's where the bird was. At times it was only twenty-five or thirty yards off shore, so a scope wasn't necessary--I had wonderful views just with binoculars. There was a good variety of waterbirds there today--one Iceland Gull, a flock of Red-breasted Mergansers, one White-Winged Scoter, Long-tailed ducks, Bufflehead, and Greater Scaup. There's also a large flock of gulls on the ice just as you enter the park off Lakeshore Boulevard. It looked like there were a few white-winged gulls mixed in with the Ring-bills and Herring Gulls, but you'd need a scope to be sure.
