Pied-billed Grebe

Podilymbus podiceps
STANFORD LOCATIONS:

Regular in small numbers at Lagunita, usually in winter but occasionally remaining, possibly to breed, in spring.
  
Nest
Location
Nest
Type
Eggs
Mating System
Dev.
Parental Care
Primary &
2ndary Diet
Foraging
Strategy
F-M
I: 23 DAYS
PRECOCIAL 4
MF
5-7
(3-10)
MONOG?
F: ? DAYS
MF
FISH
BREEDING: Usu well-vegetated lakes, ponds, sluggish streams and marshes. 1 brood, 2 in s.
DISPLAYS: Courtship more vocal than visual; male-female duet call. In territorial display at border, males turn away from each other and call, heads held high, bills up, then swing back face to face.
NEST: Inconspicuous, shallow sodden platform of decaying veg anchored in open water among reeds or rushes. Of reeds, grass, often plastered with soft green scum.
EGGS: Bluish-white, chalky, nest-stained buff/brown. 1.7" (43 mm).
DIET: Aquatic insects, also snails, fish, frogs; incidental aquatic veg. Feather balls found in stomach. In winter occ forage in salt water.
CONSERVATION: Winters s to Panama; s populations sedentary. Adaptable, found in developed areas.
NOTES: Most solitary of all N.A. grebes. For proper development, eggs must lose water but this is a problem in hot, wet nest; facilitated by having 3 x more pores for water diffusion, compared with similar eggs of other species. Young carried on back of adult, occ even during dives. Sinks to hide, leaving only head exposed.
ESSAYS: Eating Feathers; Transporting Young; Plume Trade; Swimming; Precocial and Altricial Young.
REFERENCES: Davis et al., 1984; Godfrey, 1986.

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Except for Stanford Locations, the material in this species treatment is taken, with permission, from The Birder's Handbook (Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, & Darryl Wheye, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1988).