Bird of month - Great Crested Grebe

Perhaps one of our most beautiful birds, the Great Crested Grebe was once hunted and killed for its wonderful plume feathers that grow for the breeding season and make it such an unmistakeable bird on most of our lakes and gravel pits. The RSPB, our foremost wildlife charity, was founded as a result of the trade in what was called ‘grebe fur’ many years ago and possibly saved the species from local extinction.

Larger than our ducks, the Great Crested Grebe is a big bird with large white wing patches when it flies, although it actually dives to escape in preference to flying. On most sites in the Valley the only larger birds are likely to be Swans, Geese and Cormorants, all of which are very different.

There are few of the lakes and gravel pits in the Blackwater Valley that do not hold breeding pairs of this wonderful bird. As long as the water is large enough and provides some peaceful vegetation such as a reedbed, nests will be built on the water’s edge, this being essential as the Grebe has feet very poorly adapted for walking on land. This is the time of year when the birds are quite noisy with various grating and loud calls. The young birds are striped black and white with bright pink eyes and make a wonderful picture when they sit on their parents backs as they drift around the gravel pits in the summer months. There are various begging calls from the young that can give them away, mainly a persistent ‘wee-e wee-e wee-e’.

Great Crested Grebes dive for fish or small aquatic animals as their main food. They prefer shallow water where the fish are easier to reach but in winter they spread to larger lakes and reservoirs, the numbers swollen by the populations moving to the Valley from more northerly and inhospitable climes. In winter the beautiful crown feathers have gone and are replaced by rather bland plumage in comparison. The black cap and clear white line above the eye makes this species easily separated from the Red-necked Grebe, its most likely confusion species which has a darker head and neck and is very rare in our Valley.

Fortunately, today the Great Crested Grebe is one of our most successful species and is not threatened like many others. It is Green listed so not of immediate conservation concern and certainly in the Blackwater Valley it is unlikely you could walk for many miles past gravel pits and not see them in summer or winter.

Colin Wilson

Berkshire Ornithological Club
www.berksoc.org.uk

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