Splash!
The scientific name of Great Crested Grebe is Podiceps cristatus, which translates literally as Crested Arsefoot. The bird was known as Arsefoot in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before arse was considered vulgar. And I was pleased with this photograph because the water was still and clear enough to see why the name came about. You can see the legs emanating from the arse region as opposed to most other waterbirds (Ducks, Geese, Swans Coots etc) where the legs emanate from the middle of the belly. The grebe system (also used by Loons/Divers) is wonderful when in the water but really clumsy when the birds are on land.
Great Crested Grebes are now common and widespread birds with about 4,600 pairs. But this was not always the case. The Victorian fashion for using their underbody feathers (known as grebe fur) for muffs and hats led to them being driven to near extinction in Britain. At their lowest point in the late Nineteenth Century the entire British population was thought to be fewer than thirty pairs.
I photographed this one having a shake at Ingbirchworth Reservoir in South Yorkshire.
Splash!
The scientific name of Great Crested Grebe is Podiceps cristatus, which translates literally as Crested Arsefoot. The bird was known as Arsefoot in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before arse was considered vulgar. And I was pleased with this photograph because the water was still and clear enough to see why the name came about. You can see the legs emanating from the arse region as opposed to most other waterbirds (Ducks, Geese, Swans Coots etc) where the legs emanate from the middle of the belly. The grebe system (also used by Loons/Divers) is wonderful when in the water but really clumsy when the birds are on land.
Great Crested Grebes are now common and widespread birds with about 4,600 pairs. But this was not always the case. The Victorian fashion for using their underbody feathers (known as grebe fur) for muffs and hats led to them being driven to near extinction in Britain. At their lowest point in the late Nineteenth Century the entire British population was thought to be fewer than thirty pairs.
I photographed this one having a shake at Ingbirchworth Reservoir in South Yorkshire.