Great Crested Grebe –Haubentaucher (Podiceps cristatus)
During the spring and summer of 2011, I followed the life of a pair of Great Created Grebe‘s. I was out and about with my camera (I always have it with me) and my binoculars. I had been out in the Nature Reserve at Rietberg and had been chatting (or should that be chirping) to another birdie follower (I had the previous week been on a Goose count in the reserve), he was into serious bird photography; he had a telephoto lens about a half a meter long. He asked if I had seen anything interesting I said just the normal Grey Lagged and Canada Geese. He said the t he had just photographed a Grosse Brach Vogel (Curlew) Now to a lad that was grew up (some say never did) in Northumberland and went to the salt marshes of Budel bay and Lindisfarne to do wild fowling, they where to me as common as black birds, but I could understand his excited agitation as here in Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine Westphalia) they are not at all common.
Back to the car and straight into Wiedenbrück. It was a nice morning and as I crossed the wooden bridge I saw it, the floating nest with a Great Crested Grebe atop of it! Just then its partner came along with an offering of apiece of nesting material, I then went around the corner to the bank to get a better view and some closer shots, and this must have disturbed the female as she left the nest to reveal three cream coloured eggs. I took a couple of quick shots and legged it up the bank not wanting to keep the mother away from her brooding for too long.
This started a love affair with the birds that took in the whole of the spring and the start of summer, I would visit on irregular intervals, mostly either a Friday lunch time ( I finish work on a Friday a 13:00 and will normally go for lunch at a wonderful Delicatessen in the near called Mönchmier) or a Sunday morning as I go to collect the fresh breakfast rolls from the bakers at 08:00).
I was to be away for a whole month as from Thursday 02 June so on Wednesday evening I popped across to the other side of town, just to see how my birds were doing (I had by this time laid claim to them) The Emmsee is an artificial lake constructed back in the 1960s for the Landesgartenshau, ( each of the German Federal States has a garden show each year, they invest quite a large sum of money in areas that are though of being preserved and they must be able to support sustainability after the show has moved on. Here in Rheda- Wiedenbrück they had managed to do this very well).
As I came across the first bridge that crosses the actual Ems I saw the male grebe diving, I then crossed the next bridge and saw a coot perched on top of the nest. I thought oh! No! Gone what has happened? a fox or a Martin? I then saw the female in the middle of the Emssee, she seemed to have a bit of a lump on her back, on a closer look with my Binoculars I saw at least 1 or 2 little heads , she had at least raised 2 and was giving them a piggy (or should that be a Grebby) back.
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| Hitching a ride |
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| When I returned from Holidays they where to big to get a ride on the parents backs |
On my return from England The first Friday was exactly 4 weeks and 2 days since I had last been to visit the See, to my astonishment there where now the two adults and three chicks, the chicks where now swimming along sometimes with the parents, sometimes a slight way away, but as soon as the mother called, vrek,-vrek-vrek , there was immediately an answering call, ping-ping-ping, from the off spring.
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| The family group |
Yesterday we had been out in the morning to visit a friend that had had a recent bereavement , on the way home after doing a bit of shopping, we were doing a BBQ in the evening. Linda asked "can we go for a ice cream at that nice ice cream parlour in Rheda", I thought about it ( she had been very good and hadn't asked once "are we nearly there yet") and said I have a better idea, why not go to Toldo’s in Wiedenbrück, with a smile on her face, she nodded vigorously in agreement , so she got her ice cream and I got a few more photographs of the grebes and young, as the Emssee is adjacent to the Ice cream parlour.
Sunday I was up early and went into Wiedenbrück on the auspices of getting some bread rolls for breakfast, but my true reason for passing 5 other bakers was to see what MY birds where doing.
At this time in the morning there were only 2 anglers, a jogger and myself and a few hundred birds chirping, cooing, quacking and tweeting.
I stood on the wooden boardwalk that leads to the Ems cafe and watched a couple of Anglers, one caught a jack pike it must have been swimming very close to the Grebes.
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| The cast dropping just short of the Grebes |
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| Reeling in |
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| The pike that didn't get away and the grebe's can breath a sigh |
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| A little more grown up and following Daddy |
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| And mama has got 2 in tow |
The sky was full of swallows darting over the water catching the rising flies, the ducks bobbing on the water some still asleep with their heads tucked under their wings.
The finches, tits and sparrows filled the hedges with their incessant twittering and the Wood pigeons as busy as ever making their twiggy nesting places. The moorhens plodding around as if the owned the place and along the river bank was the Chalky White Gang, a mob of white geese that DO own the place.
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| the gang lay claim to the pavement |
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| Honest my Lud we wuz only doing a bit of gardening The town gardeners refuted this saying, them pulling up the plants is no help to them |
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| A quiter time cooling off in the river |
I will continue to keep an eye on them, I don’t know if they will winter here or migrate a little farther South. But no matter what I shall be here again next year as I want to see the breeding display and may even get to see and photograph the ‘penguin-dance’
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| Some of the traditional half-timbered houses in this very pretty town |
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| I could also have had breakfast here (very nice hotel) but I had Linda waiting back home |
