Podiceps cristatus (Linnaeus, 1758)

It's nearly National Insect Week.

This, by the way, is not an insect.

Attenborough Reserve, Nottingham, UK, in June 2014. Photographed using Olympus E-420 DSLR and Zuiko 70-300mm telephoto lens. Edited using GIMP to remove unwanted element from bottom right corner.

I know, it's a long unbroken string of vertebrates, which is somewhat biased, but that's life.


This lovely bird is, however, quite important for British insects.

It, like most British wildlife with any hint of the exotic in its appearance, was almost wiped out through overhunting. It was fortunate in its timing, however, as the peak of its destruction coincided with the existence of one Emily Williamson, who, in 1889, began a campaign to put life before fashionable hats.

This, to avoid unnecessary drama, was the foundation of the RSPB, one of several organisations now responsible for a large number of Britain's nature reserves and, despite some questionable management choices in some reserves, a major player in the conservation of the diversity of British insects.



The tenuous link to the upcoming insect week is not the only interesting thing about this lovely bird; it's also extraordinarily adapted to an aquatic lifestyle; their legs, perfectly positioned for swimming, are completely inappropriate for supporting the adult's weight on dry land, and cannot do so for more than a few steps.

This presents an obvious problems; watertight though they are, the amniotic membrane cannot usually absorb enough oxygen to sustain a growing bird if it's partially or wholly submerged. A nest on the immediate edge of the water, which would allow a bird limited to the water easy access and escape, is extremely vulnerable to changing water levels, which would limit the birds to extremely stable environments.

This bird, however, survives - and arguably even thrives - all over Europe, Asia, Australia and parts of Africa, and breed in a number of areas where water levels are rarely reliable.

So they build a nest that maintains a constant distance from the water, by building their nest on top of the water, and when their chicks hatch, the first order of business is teaching them to swim.

Nottingham, July 2013. Olympus E-420 DSLR and 70-300mm Zuiko lens.

This comes in an act of rather heartless parenting. First, they give the babies a tour of the neighbourhood while perched on Daddy's back. Once they're used

 

 

to this, Daddy swims away and leaves the babies to work out how to get back to him.

Still, it's not all bad - the chicks seen in the photograph to the right were several weeks past water-dumping age, but were still allowed to pass a lot of their time enjoying the scenery from the safety of their parents wings.






So what, drumroll please, is this mystery bird? Why, it's the great crested grebe (Puteketeke in New Zealand's Maori language; Kuifkopdobbertjie in Afrikaans; or Grèbe huppé  in French),

Podiceps cristatus  

(Linnaeus, 1758)

And that, folks, is all!