Order: Podicipediformes

Family: Podicipedidae

 

Size:  up to 46-51 cm.

Weight: 0.9- 1.5 kg.

 

Key Features: It is an excellent swimmer and diver, and pursues its fish prey underwater. The adults are unmistakable in summer with head and neck decorations. In winter, this is whiter than most grebes, with white above the eye, and a pink bill. It is the largest European grebe. The young are distinctive because their heads are striped black and white. They lose these markings when they become adults.

 

Voice:  The Great-crested Grebe gives barking calls “rah-rah-rah”, also a clicking “kek” and a low growling “gorr”. Chicks give loud whistles calls.

 

Breeding: The great crested grebe has an elaborate mating display. Like all grebes, it nests on the water's edge, since its legs are set relatively far back and it is thus unable to walk very well. Usually two eggs are laid, and the fluffy, striped young grebes are often carried on the adult's back. In a clutch of two or more hatchlings, male and female grebes will each identify their 'favourites', which they alone will care for and teach.

 

Diet:  Its diet consists predominantly of large fish as well as insects, crustaceans (e.g. crayfish, shrimps) and molluscs, occasionally also adult and larval amphibians. The species's invertebrate consumption is highest during the breeding season.

 

Habitat: Suitable habitats include small pools or lakes, backwaters of slow-flowing rivers and artificial water bodies.

 

Habits: After breeding (from August to October) adults may disperse locally to large lakes and reservoirs to undergo a flightless moulting period, during which gatherings of hundreds of individuals (occasionally even greater than 10,000) may form. During the winter the species largely remains solitary, especially when feeding, but temporary congregations of up to 5,000 individuals may form in some areas. Young grebes are capable of swimming and diving almost at hatching. The adults teach these skills to their young by carrying them on their back and diving, leaving the chicks to float on the surface; they then re-emerge a few feet away so that the chicks may swim back onto them.

 

Conservation Status: Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Burnie D and Wilson DE (Eds.), Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to the World's Wildlife. DK Adult (2005), ISBN 0789477645

 

BirdLife International (2014) Species factsheet: Podiceps cristatus. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on July 02nd, 2014.

 

 "Great crested grebe videos, photos and facts – Podiceps cristatus". ARKive. Retrieved on July 02nd, 2014.

 

IUCN Red List http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/22696602/0

 

Photo Courtesy

JJ Harrison, Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons