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Black-necked Grebe (Podiceps nigricollis)

No other grebe is as sociable as the Black-necked Grebe. It breeds in colonies, which may be substantial, and it tends to remain in small but close-knit groups in the winter. Colonies also typically build up within breeding groups of other bird species, especially gulls and terns. In such arrangements, the grebes obtain inadvertent protection from their wary and aggressive neighbours.

This is a bird of small, shallow, very productive and highly vegetated lakes, and such sites may form quickly, as a result of flooding, for example. Colonies of these grebes may then form equally rapidly and then disappear elsewhere next season, making the bird unpredictable in its appearance. More than any other grebe, the Black-necked will regularly feed without diving, dipping its head and neck into the shallows, or even skimming its bill over the water. It also takes fewer fish than most other species, subsisting mainly on insects.

The Black-necked Grebe’s courtship displays are similar to those of the Slavonian Grebe, including a parallel rush across the water surface, but without carrying weed. In common with other grebes, the young are frequently carried on the parents’ back but, uniquely, they may also be tended within a crèche with other youngsters.