The Link Early Spring 2020 The Link Feb-Mar 2020 v1 | Page 20

the water, chest to chest, flicking their beaks from side to side. It was the splendour of this plumage and the bird’s unusually dense breast and belly feathers, called grebe fur, which nearly led to its extinction in the Victorian era. The feathers of the crest and neck were so marvelled, that women of fashion decorated their hats with their feathers and made muffs and capes from grebe fur. Great Crested Grebe T he most opulent residents on the river bank are without doubt the great crested grebes with their magnificent velvety black and chestnut orange head plumes and neck ruff, which frames its white face. A wetland bird with elegance, its courtship dance is a lavish affair to spy on a cold spring morning in late February or early March. By the mid-eighteen hundreds, fewer than 70 birds survived nationally and only protective legislation bought in from 1870 reversed the decline. Happily since that period the bird has increased dramatically and now it is in good numbers across the country. The great crested grebe is the largest of the five European grebes and prefers to reside on large, open expanses of shallow water. In the breeding season, a reasonable reed fringe is required, where the birds can build their anchored, but floating, nest. Three to five eggs are laid, at any time from late February to the end of August. Nest building, incubation and rearing the young are shared by the pair. The young leave the nest as soon as the last egg has hatched and, for the next two weeks or so, the young spend their time in the safety of a mobile ‘nest’, the parent’s back. The young are fed a diet of mainly fish, and fledge after nine or ten weeks. The pair of love struck grebes join together to Great Crested Glebe can be found in large water bodies perform something like an Argentinian tango on on Surrey Wildlife Trust reserves such as Sheepwalk water. Beak to beak, the head tossing begins. With near Shepperton, Puttenham Common and Boldermere beaks full of water weed, they marvel alternately at Lake on Ockham and Wisley Common as well as each other’s bill dipping and feather preening. The reservoirs near Staines. To find other reserves near dance builds to a crescendo as they power up out of you visit www.surreywildlifetrust.org To advertise call 01684 833715 or email: [email protected] 20