Grebe Season

It’s that time of year and the red-necked grebes will be making their nests and having chicks. In recent weeks the grebes have started getting their summer colours, but they haven’t started making their nests yet. We did see that the volunteers at the Friends of Sam Smith Park have started putting out the nesting boxes.

We are relatively new to the grebes of Col Sam Smith Park, watching them the last couple years. From what I gather, they aren’t very common in the area but they frequent this park. We’ve noticed that many seem to over winter here as well. The grebes will nest in boxes provided by volunteers, but the will also make their own nests.

In early May the grebes start doing their mating dances.

Shortly there after they start making their nests

By June the chicks start to hatch. When we watched them last year, it did seem to take days, if not a full week for all of their eggs to hatch. This day we saw the grebe pair tending their nest, while one baby had hatched. They seem to take turns incubating the eggs and fishing for their young.

Once all of the babies have hatched they start moving about more and away from the nest. The little baby grebes climb on and off their parents backs. Some times they will swim for a short bit then climb back on their parents back.