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Solitary grebe rides the waves

April 20, 2025 Don Knowler

On the choppy waters of the bigger of the two reservoirs of the Waterworks Reserve I could see a tiny, rounded shape bobbing among the waves.
Although I didn’t have my binoculars with me, I knew immediately what the bird was. An Australasian grebe had arrived on southerly winds overnight.
The grebe – dwarfed by the black and wood ducks on the wide expanse of water – cut a solitary figure, looking exposed, and I wondered how long it would remain before moving on to its usual habitat of sheltered pond, fringed by towering reeds.
The grebe is certainly not a creature of open water, like the hoary-headed grebes commonly seen at the reserve out of the breeding season in winter.
The visiting Australasian grebe was still in its breeding plumage, a mix of dark browns with a russet stripe running down the side of its head and neck. A yellow spot just below the eye and base of the bill, and a yellow eye, makes identification certain even in bad light or at a distance.
It was barely six months since I had spotted the first Australasian grebe I had ever seen at the Waterworks, and the timing of these two sightings corresponded with seasonal movements out of the breeding season.
The grebe – as with all birds – has its own niche in the avian environment. It likes fresh water in the shape of billabongs and farm dams and its small size allows it to hide itself in shallow, reedy waters where it dives for small fish and invertebrates.
When breeding, pairs build nests of reeds and grass amid the reedbeds and produce four or five young, with up to three broods in a season. Then, with breeding done, the Australasian grebe moults its summer plumage and becomes what can only be described as a drab little bird in muted grey-brown feathers.
At first glance in winter it resembles the hoary-headed grebe but they are told apart by the Australian grebe’s smaller and more rounded shape, without an obvious neck. It can resemble a child’s furry toy as it bombs about on the water.
The hoary-headed grebe is more grebe-like in appearance, with distinct neck and elegant streamline shape which aids its diving.
At the end of winter when the hoary-headed grebes are preparing to leave their wintering ground at the Waterworks, they attain their subtle plumage of finely striped black on grey. This gives them their name, because their plumage reminded the early European settlers of the hoar frosts which coat the British countryside in the depths of winter.
On cue, with the approach of winter, the first hoary-headed grebe appeared on the reservoir in the last week of March. My focus, though, was still on the Australasian grebe and for a week I returned to each day to locate it riding the ripples of the waves.

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