Little Grebe

Next in the list of Winter Visitors to City Beautiful is the Little Grebe. We can spot little grebes, fishing and enjoying winter season at Dhanas Lake. The little grebe also known as dab chick, is a smaller dark brown bird with white under parts, only six inches long with a short neck and no tail. Grebes are not ducks and in many way , they are more unusual than ducks. Grebes have “lobed” toes, not webbed feet. Grebes are rarely seen on land.

Little grebes are excellent parents. They carry their young when in danger, but this level of protectiveness is offered to the chicks only when they are really small and cannot rush to safety in time. When preening, grebes eat their own feathers and feed them to their young. It is believed to assist with pellet formation and to reduce their vulnerability to Gastric parasites.

Little grebes make floating nest in the thick cover of aquatic vegetation on the lake. Grebes can dive for about 30 seconds. Alarmed grebes dive so swiftly under water, that they have been called Hell – Driver and water witch.