Great Crested Grebes now have their magnificent headgear ready for a courtship performance that’s one of spring’s highlights. The grebe pair will swim in parallel before facing one another, bobbing and dancing, and then diving. If both birds successfully collect a ‘gift’ of pondweed, they race towards each other and, on meeting, rise up out of the water and wipe each other’s beaks with their weedy courtship present!
The plumage of these birds once led to their near loss as people wanted the feathers as decoration. In response, Emily Williamson set up the Society for the Protection of Birds in 1889 to save the grebes and other species affected by the feather trade. This group would become the RSPB.
The plumage of these birds once led to their near loss
A male and female Great Crested Grebe perform their mating ritual. Video: the RSPB (rspb-images.com)
