Pied-billed Grebe
Pied-billed Grebe chicks have an area of bare skin between the eyes and the bill that becomes bright crimson when the chicks are hungry. Since incubation begins before the last egg in a clutch hatches, there is considerable disparity in size among the hatchlings. The larger older chicks can dominate the smaller chicks. The color change of the loral skin may help the smaller chicks get food by signaling their condition to their parents.

Pied-billed Grebes breed from southern Canada and southeastern Alaska throughout the United States, Central America, and the West Indies, and as far south as southern Argentina. They use a variety of freshwater habitats including marshes, sloughs, small ponds, and the edges of rivers and lakes. They prefer bodies of water with emergent vegetation such as cattails or bulrushes with adjacent open water for foraging. They may use ponds as small as 1/2 acre.
Pied-billed Grebe Range Map

Like other grebes, Pied-billed Grebes build floating nests that are anchored to emergent vegetation in shallow water. The depth of the water may range from a few inches to a few feet. They usually place nests in the densest vegetation in a wetland, and closer to open water than to the shore. The nest is made of rotting and green plant material and mud. As the nest gradually sinks over time, the grebes add more material to keep the top several inches above the water surface. Loss of eggs to wind and wave action can be significant. The rotting plant material generates heat. When the parents leave the nest they cover their eggs and the eggs remain warm in their absence.

Young Pied-billed Grebes are precocious, able to swim and dive immediately upon hatching. They are fed by both parents and occasionally by siblings from an earlier brood. They frequently ride on the backs of their parents, even during dives. The parents usually divide the broods and feed them small prey such as dragonfly nymphs, leeches, and salamanders. Pied-billed Grebes undergo a complete molt at the end of the summer during which the flight feathers are simultaneously molted and the birds are flightless.

The song of the Pied-billed Grebe is a long series of throaty notes that may be heard from great distances. It begins with clear bell-like notes that transition into a cuckoo-like "cow, cow, cow, cowp, cowp." Females also sing, but usually omit the cuckoo-like ending sounds. Pairs sometimes sing duets and perform displays with mutual diving and resurfacing combined with wing flapping and splashing.

Northern populations are migratory and may form flocks as large as 100 birds. During migration and in the winter they will use more open water than during the breeding season. In spring they return as soon as the ice thaws on breeding territories.

Description: Pied-billed Grebes are small stocky water birds with short chicken-like bills. The overall body color is brownish, shading to darker brownish-black on the crown with lighter mottled flanks. Adults have a white orbital ring. The tail is very short and undertail coverts are white. In breeding plumage adults have a black throat patch and white bills with a black encircling band behind the white tip. In nonbreeding plumage the throat is whitish and the black band on the bill disappears.

The downy young are boldly patterned in white and black with multiple longitudinal stripes down the length of the body and a variable pattern of stripes at the sides of the head. There is a reddish patch at the crown. The bill is dull yellow with black spots. As the birds grow to adult size they attain the brownish plumage of adults, but the pattern at the sides of the head and neck is often retained until autumn. The throat becomes black prior to the breeding season in spring, at which time the bill gains its black band.


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