The Pied-billed Grebe

By Al Lowe
Contributor

I would guess that a lot of people have actually seen this bird, but just passed it off as another funny shaped duck.
Grebes are water birds, good swimmers, divers and fishermen. They spend their entire lives on the water, after they are a few hours old. They don't have webbed feet like ducks, but have 'lobed' toes instead. Each toe is swollen and flattened, so the foot is a good swimming device.
The Pied-belled Grebe is a somewhat stubby bird, with a very short tail, and a big head for its body. It is mainly brown with some barring on the under feathers. In the breeding season, the adults sport a chin of jet black, but this disappears late in the year. The beak is an odd one - most people call it hen or chicken-like. This beak is nearly white, with a black ring around it, hence the name. Pied is an old English term for being striped black and white, like a magpie.
This bird has its legs set away back on its body, so that it is extremely clumsy on land. It very rarely goes on the land. When it takes off from the water, it paddles furiously with those big feet along the top of the water, with wings beating at a great rate, until it gains enough speed to get airborne.
Look for these somewhat shy birds in small ponds, where only one pair will be, or in sheltered, calm bays in the larger lakes. They like still, marshy water where there is lots of vegetation, and lots of aquatic food.
This grebe builds its nest out of water vegetation. It is usually just a pile of plant stuff, quite a bit of it rotting. When the old birds sit on the eggs, the body heat hastens the decaying process, which in turn generates heat, helping to incubate the eggs. The eggs are always partly buried in this soft pile of rotting junk.
When the chicks hatch, they are heavily striped with black and white. They get onto the water almost as soon as they dry off, and can swim and dive right away. The chicks are often carried on the backs of the old birds. A parent can dive and swim around under water with the chicks still attached to her back.
Here is something which your average water bird can't do. This grebe has the ability to change its specific gravity. It can sink into the water so that only its head is showing. It can swim around quite normally in this state as well. Also, it can slowly submerge, tail going down first, without making a ripple or a sound.
This Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) is found in most of the wooded areas of Canada and from the south as far as Argentina. It is quite common in our northern ponds and lakes.