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HomeNature NewsThe Pink-Necked Grebe, Water Dancer Extraordinaire

The Pink-Necked Grebe, Water Dancer Extraordinaire

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Opposite to what their identify suggests, Pink-necked Grebes aren’t resourceful nation folks wielding duct tape and carrying overalls unironically. Nonetheless, these birds have a novel attraction that’s all their very own. Learn on to study these deep-diving-feather-eating dapper dancers!

Pink-necked Grebe Identification

Nonbreeding Pink-necked Grebes have darkish gray backs, pale bellies, and lightweight colored cheeks and sides of neck. Breeding adults develop a rust-coloured crimson breast and neck entrance, in addition to a black cap and well-defined silver cheek. These aquatic birds have lengthy necks and large, knife-like yellow payments. They’re bigger than most Grebes, however are a little smaller than a Mallard

These birds have small legs and wings, making take-offs tough and making them clumsy in flight and on land. Exterior of migration, Pink-necked Grebes a lot desire swimming to air journey, and in the event that they’re making an attempt to make a fast getaway from a predator, they’re going to dive somewhat than fly away.

The place do Pink-necked Grebes reside?

Pink-necked Grebes are migratory waterbirds that inhabit lakes, marshes, and coasts in temperate areas of the northern hemisphere, like northern North America, Europe, and Asia. They have an inclination emigrate over land at evening and off coastlines in the course of the day. They often wish to reside in freshwater lakes and ponds in the summertime and saltwater bays and estuaries within the winter, preferring calm and shallow waters over tough waves. 

A Day within the Lifetime of a Pink-necked Grebe

Pink-necked Grebes construct nests product of vegetation that float on shallow marshy water, anchored by the stems of standing vegetation. They dive underwater searching for fish to eat or they forage for bugs, invertebrates, crustaceans and waterside vegetation on the water’s floor. They are often territorial in the case of defending meals sources and their younger, and aren’t above low blows like attacking transgressors underwater and jabbing them within the abdomen with their sharp payments.

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Nothing brings extra pleasure to the lifetime of a Pink-necked Grebe than mating season. Courtship shows of the Pink-necked Grebe are loud and complicated, and complicated, with a cacophony of squeaks, wails, and even growls! Males increase their good-looking crests, and ‘dance’ breast to breast with females, rising up out of the water and turning their heads aspect to aspect. May this tango be why a bunch of Pink-necked Grebes are referred to as a “water dance” of grebes? For particularly fortunate women, males bear items of probably the most succulent, verdant weeds from the underside of the waterbody. 

As soon as nests have been constructed, dinner has been eaten, adversaries have been chased away, and love has been discovered, it’s time to calm down. Like many birds, Pink-necked Grebe wish to sit back with some self care by preening their feathers. Typically, they swallow their feathers and feed them to their chicks! The precise motive for that is unknown, although the habits might have the digestive good thing about defending the decrease tract from sharp, arduous, or indigestible materials like bone. 

Are Pink-necked Grebes endangered?

Though Pink-necked Grebes are thought of a species of Least Concern, their inhabitants standing just isn’t well-known, and could also be barely declining because of polluted habitat of their winter coastal areas. Oil spills degrade habitat whereas industrial fishing nets can entangle the birds in lethal snares.

Pink-necked Grebes play an necessary function of their habitats. They assist maintain the stability of the ecosystems they reside in by conserving fish populations in verify, whereas their eggs and chicks present meals for predators like eagles, mink, and pike.

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