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GREENSBORO — They are a pair of yellow-billed, black-and-white necked swans, each about the size of a mallard, distinguished by a lavish, balletic mating ritual in spring, in which they prance vertically together across the surface of the water.

No mistake: Two western grebes showed up Dec. 6 at Lake Brandt. At least, that is when a startled birdwatcher first spotted them, and, as word spread, like-minded enthusiasts began flocking to the lake to see a Pacific species never known to migrate this far east.

Each year, as the calendar turns to the National Audubon Society’s Winter Bird Count, these are the kind of unexplained surprises that wait by the cold hollows off Greensboro’s lakes.

Jilted in these stark months by fair-weather boaters, picnickers and even die-hard fishermen, lakes Brandt, Townsend and Higgins become a stopover for a different clientele. That is, birds migrating away from the hard freezes up north and violent ocean storms — trailed by people who watch them.

“In the winter, the lakes give us good vistas. We wind up seeing some very unusual birds turning up on the lakes,” said Henry Link of the Piedmont Bird Club, who is organizing a bird count party

Saturday as part of the national count. Originally, the count was scheduled for Dec. 18, but was reset due to the snow.

Last winter, the big sighting was a Pacific loon at Lake Townsend, only the second ever reported in North Carolina. The year before, it was a harlequin duck on Lake Brandt.

But as the parties divide the city into quadrants radiating from the center — roughly, the Lowe’s on Battleground Avenue — it is hard to predict which group will record the most interesting bird.

For instance, downtown traditionally is limited to a counting of garden-variety pigeons — the gray squirrels of the bird world, right?

Who, then, could have predicted that on a gray day one December, the complacent existence of the pigeons would be ruffled by the arrival of a banded peregrine falcon? The bird unexpectedly alighted in the baroque granite crevices of the Lincoln Financial Group headquarters, as if it were just another canyon in West Virginia, where it was raised as part of a restoration program.

An avia n encounter in the middle of town got Link into bird-watching. What Link saw, standing nonchalantly in the mud of Buffalo Creek, was a great blue heron — a big, dramatic, prehistoric-looking bird. The heron, common to the area, was a breathtaking sight, smack dab in the middle of Latham Park.

Since then, Link has learned to pack high-powered binoculars — just in case.

And when the bird count parties set out this weekend, one of the most desirable assignments proves, once and for all, that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

It’s the city dump.

“The landfill is actually a desirable place for birds — ravens, odd types of sparrows,” Link said. “And yes, vultures.”

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com