Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE LOONS AND GREBES

Dabchicks Species

There are three or four species closely allied to the above, one of which (P. philippinensis) ranges from southern China through Formosa and the Burmese Provinces to the Philippine Islands and Borneo, another (P. capensis) from tropical Africa and Madagascar to Persia and the Indian peninsula, while the third (P. tricolor) is found from Borneo to Celebes and New Guinea.

Still another is a peculiar whitish species (P. albescens) of Native Sikhim, North India, which is only seven and one half inches long. Other species are P. pelzelni of Madagascar, P. novce-hollandice of Java, New Guinea, and Australia, P. poliocephalus of Australia and Tasmania, and P. dominicus, the St. Domingo Grebe of tropical America in general, but ranging north to southern Texas and southern California.

This species is about nine inches long, dusky brown above, with head and neck dark grayish or lead-colored, the throat and chin dull black and the under parts white, while the bill is deep black, paler at the tip, the iris orange, and the legs and feet blackish. It frequents fresh-water ponds and lakelets as well as salt-water marshes. Another New Zealand species, also known as the Dabchick or Totokipo (P. rufipectus), is blackish brown above, finely streaked with white on the head, the throat brown, the breast rufous, and the abdomen white.

Like the other members of the group, it dives with amazing agility; but according to Buller, it flies with difficulty, and only for a short distance, skimming the surface with a very labored flapping of its little wings. The five remaining species of the genus are all South American.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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