Grebes on Virginia Water (1 Viewer)

[James Blake]

Most of my birding time for the first part of this year is going to be spent watching a pair of Great Crested Grebes on my local lake.

I'm managing to spend a couple of hours with them once or twice a week, and am getting to know the rhythm of their day, as they move between feeding, loafing, preening, sleeping, driving off intruders and occasionally displaying.

The displaying I've seen so far has been just head-waggling and display-preening.

In 2 hours' watching this weekend the pair spend much time vaguely close to each other but showed no inclination to court at all. The most interesting behaviour I saw this was a (not very serious) underwater attack on a Tufted Duck whch had floated too close to one of the birds.

Obviously I'm hoping for chicks in the spring - I'm already feeling a little broody.

James

 

[deborah4]

Obviously I'm hoping for chicks in the spring - I'm already feeling a little broody.

James

you won't be saying that once the morning sickness kicks in James

I do find these fly on the wall type diaries fascinating. Do keep posting up your observances (and pics too of the happy couple if you can!)

 

[Upland Birder]

Hey James,

This is a really interesting read and I hope you continue to write about your observations. It will be very interesting to read about what you see with these birds over the coming weeks and months.

Thanks for sharing.

Dean

 

[Stranger]

Looking forward to hearing more.
Brings back memories of cycling to VW from Wokingham as a schoolboy during the Hols.
Mind you the only thing I saw courting there was my English teacher!

 

[James Blake]

Many thanks for the comments and interest.

I don't work Tuesday mornings, so managed to spend an hour or so with the grebes mid-morning. Nothing dramatic to report, but I'm getting increasingly interested in the detail of their daily life.

They occupy a long bay at one end of the lake. I've only once seen another grebe venture into the bay, and after half an hour or so it was driven out by one of the resident birds.

When I arrived this morning the grebes were fishing several 100m apart, but after a while, came together. They seem to like to come together for at least part of every hour or two-hour stretch. Yet today, as on previous occasions, there's no obvious greeting when they do come together. In fact one of them went to sleep soon after the other had cruised up close.

One bird was now dozing, waking up frequently, mainly when other kinds of bird flew close by; the other was preening and having a serious stretch of one leg.

After a while, in a moment when both birds were awake, there was a brief head-waggling display, and then it was back to dozing in one case and preening in the other.

Soon both were dozing. A Black-headed Gull coming low overhead woke both up simultaneously, and there was another head-waggle.

The more alert bird soon began fishing, and its dives took it further and further from its mate. Then at some point sit eemed moved to link up with its mate again: it headed back that way in an apparently deliberate manner, calling, and was able to rouse its sleeping mate for a final brief head-waggle.

I'm not sure if I can tell the birds apart, or tell which is likely to be the male and which the female, but I'm going to try to work this out soon.

I'm away at the weekend, so next update in a week's time.

James

 

[James Blake]

Nature may often be red in tooth and claw, but not always so.

Life for the grebes seems peaceful and predictable right now. I dropped by for an hour this afternoon and it was business as usual: the usual loafing, fishing, displaying and preening.

Possibly the displaying is getting a bit more frequent and urgent, but then again I could be imagining it!

As ever, several Mandarins on the Obelisk Pond in the park.

James

 

[James Blake]

This morning I saw just one bird, and it several times gave a call I hadn't come across before: a full-throated cry given with neck fully extended.

I'm pretty sure this is what BWP describes as croaking or crowing, especially as it's apparently a call used by a paired bird seeking its mate.

Where was the other bird? Possibly somewhere in the emergent vegetation; or possibly making a rare expedition beyond the bay the pair has obviously made its territory. I don't believe adult grebes have masny predators, and both birds have been looking in very good health, so I'm at present I'm not too worried that it's died.

James