I have been fortunate to take 2 tour-enhanced excursions on a small lake north of San Diego, learning this enchanting behavior of Western Grebes. My memory cards filled with stills and videos, including the slow motion version you see above.
What an experience to see these Grebes and their fascinating pre-mating behavior! It all starts with advertising, which is a type of "cree-creet" call they make to each other as a precursor to what happens next.
Ratchet pointing occurs when the pair face-off across from each other, low in the water. Next will be dip shaking where they alternate sticking their beaks in the water, rising and splashing droplets around in performance for their potential mate.
The next and most dramatic part is the rush where they both rise up and literally run across the water together!
Another interesting behavior to observe is called barge trilling where several males (usually) tread water in a way that extends their bodies upward with chests out in attempt to impress the females. I was very excited to have captured this formation!
While I haven't progressed to the mating, nest-building or grebette (baby) raising stage of this photography mission, I am hoping to add that in the future. In the meantime, one more fun thing they do after pairing up, male to female is called the weed dance.
Their dance is preceded by neck stretching, bob shaking and weed diving. Then they show off aquatic vegetation by rising up to tread water with the weeds in their beaks, performing a very close ballet. This is fascinating to watch!
I will end this post with three more videos, showing this most fascinating behavior of these beautiful Western Grebes. Please stay until the end where I have captured the rarest of behavior where two weed-dancing Grebes are actually talking to each other! [grin]
I will consider this post incomplete until I can record more of these wonderful creatures in their mating and child-rearing habitat.
Thank you for viewing!
Steve
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