Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE LOONS AND GREBES

THE GREBES (Family Podicipedida)

As already stated the Grebes are much smaller birds than the Loons, few of them exceeding twenty inches in length, and many of them being under ten inches. By far the larger portion of their lives is spent in fresh-water lakes and ponds, but in winter and during the migrations they often resort to the sea. Like their relatives they are most expert divers, taking to wing with great reluctance and only when so hard pressed that they would otherwise be captured. They readily dive at the flash of a gun and before shot or bullet can reach them.

Unlike many other water birds they do not employ the wings in swimming under water, but depend exclusively on the lobed feet for both diving and swimming.

Their food consists of frogs, fish, mollusks, water insects, and occasionally seeds and bits of vegetation. The nest is a thick, matted platform of rushes and other aquatic plants, often procured by the birds by diving, and is usually floating on the water, being perhaps slightly anchored, often over deep water, to some rush or other aquatic plant.

The eggs, two to five in number, and dull white or greenish white in color, are placed in a slight depression on the top of the floating mass, and are always damp and not infrequently hatched while partially covered with water.”

When out of the shell the young has not far to walk; he looks a few moments over the edge of his water-drenched cradle and down he goes with the expertness of an old diver.”

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