• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Where premium quality meets exceptional value. ZEISS Conquest HDX.

Hoary-headed Grebe - BirdForum Opus

(Redirected from Poliocephalus poliocephalus)
Breeding adult
Photo © by peterday
Laratinga Wetlands, Adelaide, South Australia, October 2013
Poliocephalus poliocephalus

Identification

Juvenile
Photo © by woom
Farmer's dam, New South Wales, Australia, February 2016

27–30·5 cm (10½-12 in)

Adult Breeding

  • Brownish-grey above
  • Whitish below
  • Grey upper breast
  • Brownish-grey flanks
  • Grey-brown forehead darkening towards black hindcrown and nape
  • Whitish streaks over head and cheeks give hoary appearance
  • Black chin
  • Usually pale yellowish-white iris
  • Black bill with white tip
  • Olive-green legs

Adult Non-breeding

Generally duller and greyer, streaking on head much reduced but dark cap retained

Juvenile

Similar to non-breeding adult but with indistinctly striped face.

Flight

Broad white trailing edge to secondaries on upperwing which continues across most of the primaries.

Distribution

Southern half of Australia and Tasmania.

Taxonomy

This is a monotypic species[1].

Habitat

Lakes, reservoirs and large swamps.

Behaviour

Breeding

Breeds November-January or after rains. Nest is a floating heap of vegetation. Eggs: 3-5 (sometimes 6), greenish-white to pale blue initially. Incubation takes 20-25 days.

Diet

They have a wide diet consisting of invertebrates, such as water beetles, caddis flies, arachnids and damselflies. They also take some small fish occasionally.

References

  1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
  2. Llimona, F., J. del Hoyo, D. A. Christie, F. Jutglar, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Hoary-headed Grebe (Poliocephalus poliocephalus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.hohgre1.01

Recommended Citation

External Links

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1

Back
Top