We're adding new birds each day until we reach our 500th Birdorable species! Today's Bonanza bird is Clark's Grebe.
Clark's Grebe is a large species of grebe found in western North America. They breed along inland lakes; most of the population migrates to habitat along the Pacific Ocean for the winter.
Clark's Grebe (Aechmophorus clarkii) by Kevin Cole (CC BY 2.0)
This species can be distinguished from the Western Grebe by face color and bill color. The two are very similar in appearance and were considered to be the same species until the 1980s.
Tomorrow's bird lives in Africa. It is very pretty. You might even call it Superb!
If you think our Birdorable birds are cute as adults, what about when they are babies? Below are some baby photos (shared via Flickr Creative Commons) of the Great Crested Grebe. Great Crested Grebe nesting activity follows an elaborate courtship ritual of displays. Chicks are semi-precocial at hatching, meaning they are able to leave the nest within the first day. The parent birds carry the chicks on their backs as they grow and learn how to dive for food themselves.
Futen in een meerkoet-nest by Jeroen Kransen
Great Crested Grebe Nest 14.05.10 by nottsexminer
Great Crested Grebe by hans s
Great Crested Grebe parents & chicks on Greenland Dock by drplokta
Grebe with chicks on Canada Water by drplokta
Piggyback by jurvetson
Great Crested Grebe chick on Canada Water by drplokta
Grebes Mother and Chick by ahisgett
Pretty cute, right? Be sure to check out our Birdorable Great Crested Grebe t-shirts and gifts!
We've just added two new coloring pages with Birdorables from the grebe family. The Pied-billed Grebe is a cute little diving bird that lives across the Americas. The Great Crested Grebe is a larger grebe that can be found in Europe and Asia. Go to Coloring Pages to download these two new PDFs. You can check our Meet the Birds page to get some color guidance.
These downloads will be available until 15 May 2011. Check here for more coloring pages. Subscribe to the Birdorable Blog by RSS feed or by email to get notified when new downloads like this are added. Have you used our coloring pages at home, in your classroom, or at an event? We'd love to hear about it! Send us photos of the pages in action, or the final result - we may showcase them on our blog!
1. Although flighted, to escape danger, Pied-billed Grebes prefer to dive under water.
2. Migratory Pied-billed Grebes fly at night. They are strong fliers, but are thought to only take off from water, and they need a long "runway" prior to "take-off."
3. Male and female Pied-billed Grebes have similar plumage, but males are usually bigger and may have bigger, heavier bills than females.
4. The toes of Pied-billed Grebes are lobed rather than webbed.
Pied-billed Grebe-IMG_6053-Campbell-crop by gimlack
5. When the incubating female Pied-billed Grebe leaves the nest, she covers the eggs in order to conceal them from predators.
6. Chicks spend their first days after hatching on the back of a parent. The chicks leave the nest shortly after hatching, but are unskilled swimmers for the first week or so.
7. Baby Pied-billed Grebes have a wildly different plumage than their parents, especially on the face, which is striped in black, white, and reddish-brown.
Pied-billed Grebes by Adam R. Paul
8. Pied-billed Grebes are known to eat their own feathers as a digestive aid.
9. Pied-billed Grebes have several folk names, including "water witch" and "hell-diver."
10. The Pied-billed Grebe is one of our Birdorable cute birds! The species was added to Birdorable on December 3rd, 2010.
The Western Grebe is the latest bird to be cutified as a Birdorable. Western Grebes are water birds that live in North America. During their elaborate courtship rituals, pairs of Grebes will race madly across the water. Both parents raise the chicks and both will carry them on their back, as seen in this - our totally cute Birdorable version of the Western Grebe.
