On a recent cold day I went for a walk in Lee Valley Country Park with a group from the RSPB. Our last port of call was the Grebe Hide, where we were treated to a great courting display. Unfortunately, the Great Crested Grebes were quite far away and, even with my lens at longest zoom, these photos are the best I could manage.
At first there were actually 3 Great Crested Grebes, but one of the males soon got rid of his rival. This happened too far away for me to get any photos at all, but I could see the aggression through my binoculars.
Then the chase got going:
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| Male and female Great Crested Grebes |
Mr and Ms eventually got closer together:
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| Great Crested Grebes |
and then closer:
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| Courting Great Crested Grebes |
and then extremely close:
Is it one Grebe with two heads??
They did a lot of head bobbing, which I was unable to photograph. They then parted and chased one another around for a while before getting back together and repeating the whole process. It was fascinating. I would have stayed longer, but I was freezing and the group were leaving to get the train back home.
It was a great day, with a great amount of birds. As well as the Great Crested Grebes, I saw a Bittern and lots of Lapwings (photographs in my other posts).
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