Great Crested Grebes
In 2022 I photographed some Great Crested Grebes Podiceps cristatus on an urban lake near my home. At the time I wasn’t able to put a lot of time into them with only three visits, other projects and life got in the way as is often the case with wildlife photography.
I work away from home Monday to Friday so my time is limited to two days a week, that and the unpredictable British weather makes it more difficult to give home projects the time they deserve. This year I’ve visited ten times so far and have a lot more to show for it visually but also in my knowledge of Grebe behaviour.
The reason this one lake is so productive is the concentration of Grebes, at least 5 pairs, and the layout of the lake. The main part is very wide with a few inlets and bays dotted around its almost 4.5 mile perimeter. One of the inlets narrows to about 7 metres before opening up again to a larger bay.
The area is popular with dog walkers, runners and anglers so the Grebes are quite used to people on the inlet however the main lake ones are a bit more wary, the narrowness along with the proximity to people make the inlet Grebes great for photography.
ABOVE One of the inlet Grebes shot through the reeds at sunrise.
ABOVE A pre sunrise shot of a Grebe shaking the water off.
ABOVE A pair greeting each other with head shakes, the pre cursor to a weed dance as seen below.
One pair of Grebes were ahead of the others in courtship and nest building, with both birds sharing in the incubation of the eggs. Fortunately the other inlet pair were still on the courtship phase of their paring up and it was close enough to get some images.
The climax to the Grebe courtship display, after raising their crests and performing a series of head bobs and shakes both birds swim down to grab some weed and emerge with it in their beak, swimming towards each other. Once they meet they both raise their bodies up, breast to breast, treading water to keep vertical paddling against each other to stay up.
The head bobbing is fairly common and amazing to watch but the weed dance really is spectacular to witness and more so when it happens in good light not far from where I was laying in the reeds.
ABOVE One of the adult Grebes with its head tucked in to go to sleep on the water.
I don’t know what Grebes do at night time but during the day they take a lot of little naps on the water. Generally they can be asleep for up to an hour although they still seem to be aware if amy other birds come into their territory.
They sometimes stay in the sleeping position while swimming towards a threat, the only giveaway is the ruby red eyes are open. If they are being very protective of the area they will call out and swim towards the other Grebe laying flat to the water, if that doesn’t discourage the intruder then they will paddle fly towards them usually resulting in the other bird doing the same in the opposite direction but occasionally a fight happens.
Once the pair have set up a territory they build a nest of floating sticks anchored to the reeds, usually in the least accessible area for photography. I watched many pairs build nests and even raise chicks in them but when I returned the following week the nest would be empty and there were no signs of either bird or one adult continuously calling for its mate. It was challenging to get any mating photos as they were either in the reeds or too far away but I was lucky on a couple of occasions.
ABOVE Newly born ‘humbugs’ on one of the parents backs as the other adult brings a fish in.
By chance one of the pairs nested on a reed bed that was accessible with a very slow methodical creep along the edge of the inlet. I would move one step at a time alway watching to look for a negative reaction from the adult. It took almost 15 minutes to get into position with clear view into the nest. I spent a couple of fantastic hours with two chicks and both adults at the nest.
The adults would swap over parenting duties after around an hour, returning regularly with a fish or sometimes a feather to feed the chicks. I was curious about the feather feeding so looked into when I got home.
There’s a number of reasons for the ingestion of feathers, firstly to slow down the digestion so that tough shells on crustaceans like shrimp or crayfish is held for longer in the digestive tract to break them down more, feathers also assist with producing a pellet to regurgitate the undigested parts and finally it is believed that by producing pellets it helps protect the stomach from parasites.
ABOVE One of the adults giving a chick a feather to eat.
ABOVE It’s amazing the size of fish the parents would try to feed, if the chicks didn’t eat it after a few attempts then the adult would swallow it instead.
I returned the following day expecting the birds to still be at the nest but they were gone, the only Grebe close by was an adult, I watched it for a while expecting the chicks to emerge from the reeds but they never appeared. The lone adult was contact calling for a mate constantly so I can only assume something predated the other adult and chicks during the night. There are large Pike and Otters on the lake so perhaps they were taken by one of those.
Luckily another pair on the main lake had managed to raise three chicks so I was able to work with this other family.
ABOVE The new family I was photographing all out on the main lake area.
ABOVE The final image I took of the chicks before winding up the project, an almost adult independent Great Crested Grebe.
Photographing these Grebes taught me a lot about there behaviour and family life, usually a shy timid species it was great to make the most of them being more tolerant of humans, a lot of wildlife photography is like that, finding an animal and making the most of the opportunity presented.
You can read more about the Great Crested Grebe at the British Trust for Ornithology website, although not currently of concern it wouldn’t take much to damage the Grebe numbers especially with the recent news of raw sewage being dispersed into many of the waterways around the country, if you want to support the BTO who record masses of data every year then consider donating to them in money or time, they have some great volunteering opportunities to help them out and they are a great reason to get some fresh air.