Thanks for the comments gents.
It was a hit and miss kind of day out at CSSP. When I arrived there it was about 1pm and the sun was shining right in the old mug - great for warm temps, lousy for shooting into even though the grebes were no more than 25 feet away at times. The grebe in shot 4 was one of those backlit birds.
After snapping a few backlit shots, I decided to head over to the Eastern side of the marina where I saw some actively feeding grebes which kept circling the little bay. After positioning myself in some bushes and aiming north, I waited. And waited. And then waited some more. They never came back, but hey, at least the attempt was made.
From there I went out to the lake and buried myself in the rocks waiting for them to come inshore to feed, and sure enough that's where I found them as they passed. Shot #2 came from that position.
After a while of shooting, I then went to the western side of that same bay and hid in the grass, just observing the grebes go about their courtship rituals and calling - quite the thing to see. It was then I spotted a pair of ducks flying towards my position and sure enough they landed and proceeded to swim towards me. American wigeon drake and hen - bonus! They stayed for a while and weren't too skittish at all as they spent a good 10 minutes swimming around right in front of me, no more than 20 feet away at times until they flew off in an eastern direction. Picture #3 is one of the better ones from the series.
From there I decided to walk along the lake side path out to the point. Along the way I found the Gadwalls in shot #5 out in the lake being escorted by a pair of red necked grebes. Then I took a look down the rest of the lakeside shoreline and all I saw was grebe after grebe after grebe, of course all backlit because the sun had moved to the west. I took a look over to my right at the marina and sure enough there was some calm water close to shore and that's where I got shot #1.
From there I decided to just head back to the car as the sun was setting. There were more gadwalls in the marina area but with little light I thought I'd save those for another day.
Cheers, Attila
