Summer 2004

Pied-billed Grebe
Diver in Laughing Waters

by Sheryl De Vore

Each summer, my sister and I visit Black Tern Marsh in McHenry, Illinois, to look for a certain small wetland bird. Quite often, we see it: the diminutive pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) and several of its even more diminutive, stripe-backed young, cruising the Fox River backwaters in July or August. We can't help exclaiming "Isn't that cute!" as the chicks cling to mom's back or parade so closely that they seem glued to her body.

A young pied-billed grebe with its distinctive striping. Photo by Jim Flynn, Root Resources.

Pardon the fawning, but everything about this bird is cute, from the way it looks to the way it behaves. Well, almost everything.

When this species goes a-courting, it issues a loud and maniacal call from the wetlands, usually at dawn and dusk. It's as if the wetlands were laughing.

If males are defending territory, they'll call with their heads held high and their bills turned up-but their bodies turned away from their challenger. The song is their defense, as well as their ticket to a lady's love.

The pied-billed is the only grebe species that regularly nests in Illinois, and its largest breeding populations statewide are in the Chicago Wilderness region. It also breeds across Wisconsin and in some portions of Indiana. This species needs good-quality marshes for successful reproduction, and many conservationists restoring local wetlands have been encouraged by the quick return of grebes to these previously disturbed sites. The Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board recently recommended their removal from the state threatened list because of increasing populations.

The pied-billed has a brown body, black throat, a stout, chicken-like, light-colored bill with a black ring on it, and a short, barely noticeable tail. Its feet are set so far back on its body that it waddles awkwardly on land. But give it some room to swim and the pied-billed grebe is like a fish in the ocean. Those well-placed feet, like those of the loon, help the grebe dive to 20 feet quickly and expertly. It can stay underwater for at least 30 seconds, often emerging far from where it submerged, giving observers a bit of a chuckle, if not a bit of a conundrum.

The grebe dives to find aquatic invertebrates, crustaceans such as crayfish, small fish, adult and larval amphibians, and occasionally aquatic plants. To help digest those critters, the grebe regularly plucks and eats its own feathers to line its stomach.

The pied-billed grebe also dives to escape intruders, such as hawks, or sinks into the water until only its eyes and bill are visible. One of the few diving birds with this ability, it can cruise like an avian submarine, complete with periscope, until it's safe to surface.

During the nesting season, birders may see grebes with what looks like seaweed dripping from their mouths-that's nesting material. The female anchors a floating nest of decaying wetland vegetation to living greenery so that it blends with the wetland scenery. When an intruder approaches, the adult grebe covers the eggs and slips beneath the water.

The pair takes turns incubating their four or five eggs, and in about 28 days the young hatch and immediately climb onto the adult's back to get their first bird's-eye view of the water. Within days, they are swimming with their parents and learning how to dive. Come September and October, small flocks of pied-billed grebes congregate on lakes and marshes before flying as far south as Panama, leaving only the memory of laughing waters in Chicago Wilderness wetlands.