Radipole Lake RSPB reserve
Tuesday September 11th 2012
A walk around my local reserve this morning produced a distant view of a hobby and this much closer pair of fishing little grebes.
These are in their gorgeous summer plumage, compare them with this sleepy bird filmed earlier this year:
The little grebe in the first video appeared to be having some difficulties swallowing a small fish.
It's larger great-crested friends don't seem to have the same problem.
Other grebes visit us for the winter only, such as this rare red-necked grebe filmed in Portland Harbour last March.
There are only 2 other grebes in Europe, slavonian and black-necked, both of which winter in Portland Harbour every year.
This video shows a wintering flock of great-crested grebes joined by a solitary slavonian grebe.
I've yet to get a black-necked on film, but should be able to fill the gap in my grebe library this winter now that Sandsfoot Castle has a smart new verandah, or 'grebe-filming platform' as I shall call it.