LITTLE GREBE 



Podtcipes fluviattlts 



HE Little Grebe is by far the most widely distributed of 

 its genus throughout the British Islands, including the 

 Orkneys and the Outer Hebrides, and breeds in most 

 districts which are suitable to its habits. 



Like its congeners, it is essentially a bird of the water, 

 preferring small ponds full of reeds and covered with water 

 plants, or still pools among the more sluggish streams. 

 It is a most beautiful diver, and obtains most of its food below the surface ; 

 this consists mainly of water insects, tiny fish, and tadpoles, sometimes even 

 the buds and tender shoots of the water plants. During the winter it 

 frequents the larger waters, and may often be seen on the coast in some quiet 

 estuary with low-lying grassy shores. The Little Grebe is a very shy bird, 

 and dives immediately on being alarmed, hiding itself among the reeds or 

 water plants with only its bill above the surface, or skulking among the holes 

 under the banks. 



The Little Grebe usually commences nesting operations about the middle 

 of April, sometimes a little later; and is known to rear two broods in the 

 year, the young of the first brood assisting in the management of the second. 

 The nest is usually a floating mass of water-plants and reeds anchored to some 

 semi-submerged branch, or tied to and among growing reeds. As a rule it 

 is a low wet-looking mass of decaying weeds not at all like a nest, as the 

 eggs are invariably covered by the bird with pieces of wet weed taken from 

 the sides of the nest, before she will leave them. 



A very good instance of the extreme care that these birds take to conceal 

 their eggs was a nest I came across in the reedy backwater of a stream, not 

 twenty feet from a well to which the villagers came many times in the day 

 to draw water. By carefully concealing myself within sight of the nest, which 

 was fairly in the open, I found that the bird covered her eggs carefully 

 and left the nest every time that any one came to the well. That she did this 



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