What does grebe eat. Great grebe, or grebe. Lifestyle and places of residence

Duck grebe, despite the unsightly name, is very beautiful in appearance. Great grebe, crested grebe, crested - all these are the names of a representative of the grebe family. From the article you can learn about the lifestyle and habitats of the bird.

Appearance and characteristics

In fact, grebe is not. They are similar only in size and from a distance in color. However, the name duck grebe has firmly entrenched among the people. It is no coincidence that the bird deserved the nickname. The specificity of eating shellfish and fish made the meat very tasteless, endowed with a sharp and bad smell. According to the classification, the duck belongs to the waterfowl of the Pogankov family.

The bird looks like this:

1. Body length 46-61 cm. Weight about 700 g.
2. Small head, thin, long neck.
3. The back is covered with dark brownish feathers.
4. The wings are narrow and short.
5. Belly, neck, head white.
6. The beak is straight, elongated, red in color, with a curved tip.

Small wings and poorly developed muscles that set them in motion enable the bird to fly quickly, but without much maneuvering. Because of this, the duck moves in a straight line in the air and only lands on the water. When in contact with the ground, the grebe can be injured.

Attention! A distinctive point in the description of the grebe is the legs. Long fingers with folds are able to perform a 90º turn, stand along and across the movement.

The duck is an excellent swimmer and good diver. If necessary, it quickly sinks under water to a depth of 6-7 m.
By the mating season, elongated feathers grow on the head, forming sideburns and "horns". It was at this time that they try to capture the bird in the photo.

Lifestyle and places of residence

The toadstool lives in the eastern hemisphere of the Earth. IN southern regions the duck lives permanently, migrates to the northern ones for the winter. For nesting, grebes choose stagnant water bodies surrounded by dense vegetation.

IN middle lane The Russian duck arrives in April and starts looking for a mate. The growth of a tuft and sideburns on the head of birds indicates readiness for breeding.

The mating games of great grebes are very interesting. Having met each other, the male and the female take various enticing poses. Birds open their wings, stand up in columns. The ritual is not complete without “songs”. During the flirting period, the duck makes very loud sounds.

Once a pair is identified, a nest is built. The place is chosen hidden from prying eyes by dense aquatic vegetation. Each couple has their own, jealously guarded site. The games continue. Often there is a "dancing" couple with twigs in their beaks.

The nest of the Great Grebe is floating with a hole for eggs located in the center. Dry reed is used as building material. The width of the nests reaches half a meter. The same size part is under water. Duck lays 3-4 eggs.

Over time, parts of the plants begin to rot, which is accompanied by the release of heat. This helps the bird to safely incubate offspring surrounded by water. The babies born after 24 days already know how to swim and, together with their mother, go into the water. You can often see how a duck swims with a brood sitting on its back.

Attention! Toadstools are great parents. Both the father and mother constantly swim with the chicks, teaching the offspring the wisdom of life.

Having reached the age of 2.5 months, grebes move on to an independent lifestyle. By October, great grebes gather in flocks and go for the winter.

Bird food and natural enemies

Duck grebe spends almost all the time in the water. Accordingly, here he earns his livelihood. Insects, frogs, mollusks, crustaceans are used. The main food is fish. Until now, ornithologists have not established the reason for one of the nutritional features - the duck regularly swallows feathers. As a result, several feather lumps accumulate in the stomach. Some scientists argue that in this way the crested grebe digests food better. Others agree that the lumps are a kind of strainer for fish bones.

Of the natural enemies, the marsh harrier is noted. But even such a hardened predator is not easy to catch a crested bird. If the harrier appears in the field of view, the duck, together with the brood, dives under the water and swims out about 20 meters from the original location. The cubs are firmly held by the claws on the feathers on the back and maneuver with their mother.

The toadstool duck is a very interesting bird that ornithologists never tire of admiring, noticing more and more new features.

Great Grebe: video

Great Grebe is a waterfowl, the largest member of the order of grebes in Europe, hence the second name of the bird Great Grebe. The birds got such an unusual name because of the disgusting taste and smell of their meat, it is somewhat reminiscent of the smell of rotten fish. For a long time, this species was on the verge of extinction due to the fashion for jewelry made from their feathers.

Geography of residence

Birds of this species are common in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, East and South Africa, they can lead both migratory and sedentary lifestyles. In places of residence it nests everywhere, except for the territory of the Far North.

These birds live on lakes and ponds, nest in damp places, closer to fresh water bodies, the main condition for choosing a nesting site is a large amount of aquatic vegetation.

Great Grebe or Great Grebe.

Appearance

The photo of the great grebe shows that their body is streamlined, roll-shaped, with dense plumage. Great Grebes are not large birds, body length is 46 - 59 cm, and weight is from 600 to 1500 grams, and females are noticeably smaller than males. These birds have a long and thin, almost vertical neck. An interesting fact is that there are no solid swimming membranes on the legs of the Grebe, and each toe is bordered by a wide rowing blade. The legs of the birds are olive green. The wings of the great grebe are not long and rather narrow, the tail is so short that it is almost invisible.

During the breeding season, the back feathers are painted black-brown, and the abdomen and neck are satin white. A chestnut-red "collar" is expressed on the head, and two bunches of feathers are located on the crown of the head. During winter, this collar and tufts with feathers disappear. Sexual dimorphism is practically absent.

Nutrition and behavior

Great Crested Grebe is a carnivorous bird, they feed on fish, mollusks, aquatic insect larvae, small amphibians and crustaceans, sometimes they have a variety of algae in their diet. In order to find food for itself, the bird descends into the water, where it explores the bottom with its long beak and catches food.

Great grebe caught a fish.
Grebe with a puffed up frog.
Crested Grebe deals with prey.
Grebe caught a big fish.

To protect the stomach and intestines from injury by fish bones, the bird periodically swallows its own feathers.

Under water, grebes can move tens of meters, staying there for up to 3 minutes. The female continues to dive deep even with the chicks on her back.

In order to take off, great grebes carry out a long run from the water; these birds cannot take off from land. They go out to land very rarely, they move there with great difficulty.

Grebes usually live in small groups of 3-4 birds.

reproduction

The mating season for the Great Grebe begins in March-April. The mating games of these birds take place on the water, while they look very unusual. A pair of great grebes swim up to each other shaking their heads with loose collar feathers. As soon as the birds swim close, they stand vertically above the water, in the “penguin pose”, while they hold bundles of aquatic vegetation in their beaks, which resembles offering gifts to each other.

After mating games, which also take place in the water, the formed pairs begin to build a nest. Usually the nest is located on a small island of floating peat, dead aquatic vegetation is used for the construction of birds, it has a diameter of about 60 cm, and the height of the nest can reach 85 cm.

In the middle of the nest, the female makes a recess for laying, usually there are 3-5 white eggs in it. After 26-28 days, chicks are born, and they hatch from eggs at intervals of several days. Immediately after birth, the chicks hide in the mother's feathers. A photo of grebe chicks shows that there are gray and black stripes on the down plumage of the head and neck of the chicks, which help them to camouflage themselves in the reed beds. Chicks retain similar plumage until puberty.

The chicks do not stay long in the nest, as soon as they dry out, they leave the nest with their mother. Grebe chicks grow very slowly and stay near their parents for a long time, if there is more than one chick in the clutch, then the brood is divided only after a month and a half. Birds become independent at the age of about 65 days, and become completely independent at 71 - 80 days.

Great Grebe with a large chick on its back.
Great Grebe treats a grown chick.


A couple of grebes.

The great grebe (lat. Podiceps cristatus) is a waterfowl from the grebe family (Podicipidae) of the order Podicepediformes. It is also called grebe. It got its Russian name due to the specific taste of its meat, which has a strong smell of stale fish.

Nevertheless, in Russia, the toadstool was previously widely used as food and was even considered a delicacy among local gourmets. During its preparation, it was necessary to carefully remove subcutaneous fat and use a long soak in water or marinade.

In Great Britain in the 19th century, grebe feathers were used to decorate women's hats and collars. In 2001, in Germany and Austria, the great grebe was recognized as the bird of the year.

Spreading

Grebe is widely distributed in the territory from South-Eastern Europe and North Africa to the northern regions of China, with the exception of mountainous areas. The European population of birds winters in the Mediterranean basin, and the Asian one in India.

Relatively small populations are found in Australia and New Zealand. In the presence of non-freezing reservoirs this species able to do without seasonal migrations.

Behavior

The great grebe is diurnal and may also be active at night during the full moon. Eats various types small fish. Usually, a fish 10 to 15 cm long becomes its trophy. Some particularly voracious individuals can cope with prey 25 cm long.

In search of prey, the great grebe is able to dive to a depth of 30 m.

During active diving loses the ability to fly. Birds usually fly only at night. In addition to fish, the toadstool diet includes frogs, insects, spiders and snails. During the day, she eats about 200 g of food.

The grebe most often settles on lakes and rates with temperate vegetation, less often chooses small rivers for habitation. Prefers to be in open water. The Asian population has adapted to life on salt marshes and salt lakes. During seasonal migrations, it stops at the sea coast.

reproduction

In Europe, grebes return from their wintering grounds in March-April. Mating games always take place in the water and have an intricate ritual. Birds swim to meet their chosen one, fluffing their feathers around their outstretched necks, and rhythmically shaking their heads.

Having approached, they take a vertical position, press their chests against each other and resemble little penguins. Holding bundles of seaweed in their beaks, they offer them as a wedding gift.

Large grebes build floating nests up to 45 cm in diameter and up to 65 cm in height from dead vegetation, attaching them to water plants. Usually, each nest is located far from the nests of relatives and looks out 3-10 cm above the water level. Sometimes birds nest in colonies of up to 100 pairs.

The female lays 3-4 white matte eggs with a frequency of 2 days. Due to contact with rotting aquatic plants, they soon acquire a brown or olive color. Incubation lasts from 24 to 29 days. Parents change each other on the masonry every three hours.

Chicks are born well developed and pubescent. Their fur is very thick and soft. They can swim within minutes of their birth, but wisely prefer to hide among warm feathers on their mother's back for the first 3 weeks of their life.

Chicks remain under parental care for 10 to 11 weeks. Parents feed them with small invertebrates, snails and small fish. Periodically, chicks, imitating their parents, swallow small parental feathers. In this way they learn to get rid of fish scales.

Juvenile birds lack the characteristic crests of adults. Their head and neck are covered with white and black feathers. The back is painted Brown color. Chicks become sexually mature at the age of one. Birds can raise two broods during one season.

Description

The body length is 50-58 cm, and the wingspan reaches 80 cm. The weight ranges from 0.8 to 1.1 kg. The neck is long and white. There are two dark bronze tufts on the head.

The top of the body is dark bronze, the sides have a bronze-rusty tint. The chest is white. When flying, white feathers are visible on the upper side of the wings. The tail is short and wide.

The life expectancy of a large toadstool in natural conditions reaches 20 years.

The grebe is a rather unusual bird, which in appearance and behavior resembles a duck. It lives in almost the entire territory of Eurasia, while it is most often found on small lakes or ponds. This duck got its specific name because of the low quality of meat, which has a pronounced smell of fish and a disgusting taste. Although some craftsmen manage to cook even such a bird, which explains the popularity of hunting for it.

Description of the breed

The toadstool has several more names - great grebe, crested grebe, crested pochard. She received all these names for an unusual appearance and behavioral patterns.

This type has the following characteristics:

In the spring, an unusual plumage is formed on the head of a duck in the form of two black tufts, which are somewhat reminiscent of ears. At the same time, a red collar appears around the neck. By the onset of cold weather, these characteristic signs disappear.

bird lifestyle

The grebe, depending on the habitat, can be either a settled bird (central Europe) or a migratory bird (eastern and northern Europe). It is a freshwater bird that can be found in small ponds or wetlands. She most often chooses a territory with a variety of vegetation on land.

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Under favorable conditions for nesting, these birds arrive already in February, but most often in March-May, when the air temperature rises to the desired levels. They fly off for wintering mainly in November, but sometimes they can linger until the onset of frost.

Most often, the grebe can be seen precisely on the surface of a lake, pond, or even under water, since these birds love to dive. At the same time, they press their wings to the body, often sort through their paws, their neck is constantly moving. The grebe can dive for 15-40 seconds on average, but there have been cases when this bird was in the water column for about a minute. The immersion depth is 1-4 m. Being under water, grebes can travel long distances.

This peculiar duck very rarely comes ashore, reluctantly flies. The unusual legs of grebes are completely unsuitable for moving on land. Therefore, birds leave the reservoir only for short periods of time. When walking, they look very clumsy.

The grebe takes off heavily, runs for a long time on the water, helps itself with its wings. Despite this, the birds keep well in the air and can move a considerable distance.

What does a grebe eat?

The following foods are included in the poultry diet:

• small fish;
• shellfish;
• insects that live in a reservoir, their larvae - dragonflies, water bugs and beetles, stoneflies;
• small amphibians;
• crustaceans;
• aquatic vegetation.

The diet of the toadstool mostly consists of feed of animal origin. Some studies show that plant foods enter the stomachs of birds by accident. Also, in the digestive system of birds, small pebbles were found, which play the role of gastroliths. They stimulate the digestion of roughage and improve its digestibility.

In search of food, the toadstool can be completely immersed in water and stay there for a long time. With the help of a long beak, she gets food in the most hard-to-reach places. The toadstool almost does not leave the reservoir, therefore, its diet mainly consists of products that it can get in the water.

Reproduction features

In the spring, the nesting period begins at the toadstools, which is preceded by peculiar mating games. This ritual is accompanied by the following actions:

• ducks swim towards each other, while their feathers are fluffy. They shake their heads all the time. After a kind of flirting, the birds flock closely;
• the male and female rise in the water, while their postures resemble a penguin stance. After that, they offer each other seaweed in their beak;
• the whole process of mating games is accompanied by cries of "croix".

Mating of birds takes place on land, after which they search for a suitable territory for laying eggs and begin to build a nest. Grebes are not aggressive.

They may nest close to other birds of their own species, as well as representatives of other breeds.

Nesting process of grebes

When a pair has formed, the birds begin to build an unusual nest, which is placed on the surface of the water on a small island of peat or vegetation. At the same time, grebes pave it from dry leaves and reed stalks.

The diameter of the nest is 80 cm. At the same time, its height is about 60 cm. Inside the nest there is a small depression where the female lays 3 to 5 eggs. At first they are white, but due to rotting plants they quickly turn brown.

A feature of the nests of these birds is that they constantly move along the surface of the water and are most often flooded. Toadstool eggs are additionally heated by gases that are formed during the decomposition of vegetation. This contributes to the hatching of most chicks, despite the fact that both parents may leave the clutch for a long time. At the same time, birds always cover the nest with leaves, which also masks it from predators.

The first chicks appear after about 24 days. There can be an interval of one to three days between hatching ducklings. The first chicks are fed and cared for by the male, which makes it possible for the female to incubate other eggs.

Day old ducklings are covered with down. They quickly leave the nest and hide in the feathers of the matter on her back. In this form, with chicks, the female can even dive under water.

Young toadstools are on the back of their parents for about two months. Their survival rate in the first weeks of life is quite low and ranges from 40 to 60%. The grebe is considered an unusual bird, which has a peculiar way of life.

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Video: Last summer of the Moscow grebe

Type: Chordates Class: Birds Order: Grebes (Podicipediformes) Family: Toadstools Genus: Grebes Species: Great Grebe

How to find out

(Podiceps cristatus), - the largest of all grebes, weighs from 650 to 1400 g. From above, the color of the grebe is brownish-black, from below - white, the sides with a rusty-red tint, two white stripes across the wing.

The chestnut-red collar on the neck and two tufts of feathers on the head (ears) are especially characteristic of the Great Grebe. In winter attire, these tufts become shorter, and the collar disappears altogether.

Where does it live

The large toadstool is very widely distributed. It breeds in Australia, New Zealand, in Africa south of the Sahara, in Europe south of 60-63° north latitude and in Asia south of Tyumen, Omsk, Achinsk, Lake Khanka. In the north of its range this bird is migratory, in the south it is sedentary. Most southward migrating birds winter in the southern parts of Europe and Asia.

Lifestyle and biology

For nesting, the great grebe chooses more or less extensive stagnant and slowly flowing reservoirs with developed aquatic vegetation well warmed by the sun and with a sufficient number of fish.

An important condition for habitat is the presence of quiet open reaches where the bird could hunt for fish, and adjoining thickets of reeds or reeds, where it could hide the nest and hide from danger.

In spring, great grebe flies to nesting places when water bodies are freed from ice cover and when conditions favorable for life come. In the south of our country, this is observed at the end of March, in the northern regions of the range - at the beginning of May.

Soon after arrival, the birds begin very characteristic mating games. At the same time, the birds swim towards each other, unfold the feathers of their collars, move their heads and, having swum close, seem to stand one against the other in the water, exposing their chest and belly; sometimes the male "stands" in this way on the water above the female. At the same time, great grebes scream a lot.

The great grebe nests, as a rule, in separate pairs, but sometimes forms large colonies on large lakes. The nest is placed on the water; usually it is floating, less often resting on the bottom. It is located most often among rare thickets of reeds or near a channel so that on the one hand it is protected from the action of waves and wind, and on the other hand it is accessible for birds to swim.

It is a heap of dead vegetation, mainly reeds and reeds. The nest is semi-flooded and wet, with a fairly flat tray. The underwater part of the nest has a water temperature, and the surface part has a higher temperature, up to 7.5 ° above the ambient temperature. This is in the absence of a bird on the nest.

Nest dimensions: diameter. nests 42-65 cm, nest height 42-65 cm, surface height 3-5 cm, tray diameter 18-22 cm.

After completion of the nest building, egg laying begins. The bird rushes with an interval of 48 hours. Egg-laying lasts from mid-April in the south of the country to mid-May in the north of the nesting area. A complete clutch consists of 3-4, rarely 5-7 greenish-yellow eggs without a pattern (Table 1). Egg sizes: 48-63x32-41 mm.

The male and female incubate for 28 days, starting from the laying of the first egg. Leaving the nest in danger, the birds hastily cover it with the material from which it is made.

In June, chicks hatch, and not at the same time in the same nest. As a result, there is a difference in age of chicks in broods. The chicks leave the nest as soon as they are dry. Both parents take care of the chicks.

First, they feed them with insects and their larvae and other aquatic invertebrates, and later, when the chicks grow up, with small fish. At the same time, at first, the chicks feed from the beak, and then the food is placed on the water, from where the chicks take it on their own, learning to dive.

The great grebe, like its other relatives, is interesting in a peculiar way of protecting chicks from feathered predators, which are always enough in their habitats.

Unlike ducks and coots, the grebe, together with downy chicks, swims far from the reed thickets to the middle of the stretch and does not show concern when a marsh harrier or other predator appears.

Only with the explicit intention of the latter to attack the brood does it dive, showing itself several tens of meters away after a while. Together with her, the chicks also dive, but not on their own, but after climbing onto the back of the mother and hiding in her plumage.

The chicks are so densely stuck among thick feathers, sticking out only the tip of their beak, that the bird calmly dives with its precious burden, not being afraid to lose it under water. Predators seem to know from experience the elusiveness of grebe broods and usually do not attempt to pursue them. There are observations that grebes can even fly with chicks on their backs.

At about a month old, the chicks begin to fly. At the age of 2.5 months, shortly before departure, the broods break up, and the young begin to lead an independent lifestyle.

Great grebe has two molts per year: incomplete prenuptial (spring) and complete postnuptial (autumn). Prenuptial covers all small plumage, proceeds in February - March; in late March - early April, adults have a completely ready-made wedding attire. Postnuptial covers all plumage, including flight feathers, which are replaced quickly and simultaneously. It flows in August - September.

Unlike other grebes, the main food of the great grebe is fish, especially in autumn and winter. In addition, amphibians, insects, crustaceans, mollusks, as well as plants harvested in water are eaten. The chicks are fed mainly on insects.