From Opus

Revision as of 19:18, 19 August 2012

Tachybaptus ruficollis

Photo by Nigel Pye

Identification

23-29cm.

• Dark greyish-brown above
• Paler below with tawny flanks
• Blackish crown and hindneck
• Chestnut throat, ear coverts, and sides and front of neck
• Black bill with white tip
• Yellow gape patch
• Olive-green legs

Little Grebe Juvenile. Photo by Alok Tewari

Distribution

Common and widespread in the Old World. Breeds widely across Europe from Iberia, the British Isles and southern Scandinavia eastwards including parts of Turkey and the Middle East. Breeds across southern Asia including much of India and Indochina to China, Korea and Japan. Has a scattered distribution in the Philippines, Indonesia (rare breeder on Java and Bali) and New Guinea. In Africa breeds across the north-west and in the Nile Delta and widespread south of the Sahara absent only from the driest or most heavily forested areas.

Vagrants recorded on the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands. Mainly resident with northernmost populations migratory or dispersive.

Taxonomy

About nine subspecies recognised. Nominate race occurs in Europe, Turkey and north-west Africa, capensis (larger with more white in wing) in Egypt, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia from the Caucasus to Burma, iraquensis (with indistinct white wing-bar) in Iraq and south-west Iran, poggei in Japan, China, Taiwan and Malaysia, kunikyonis in the central Ryukyu Islands, philippensis on some of the Philippines, cotabato on Mindanao, vulcanorum on islands from Java to Timor and the Kai Islands and tricolor in Sulawesi, the Moluccas and northern New Guinea Islands. One more subspecies, albescens has been proposed for the yellow-eyed Asian birds currently placed in subspecies capensis (all other capensis have red eyes).

The last two subspecies have been proposed split as Tricolored Grebe, Tachybaptus tricolor.

Habitat

Well-vegetated ponds and lakes, mainly in lowland areas.

Behaviour

Diet

Diet includes small fish and aquatic invertebrates.

Breeding

Its nest is a heap of vegetation in reed beds or other marginal vegetation. 4-6 whitish initially soon becoming stained eggs are laid and are incubated by both sexes for 19-25 days.

Vocalisation

whit-whit and in breeding season utters a whinnying trill, sometimes in duet.

References

1. Birdforum thread discussing the taxonomy of Little Grebe

External Links