Pied-billed Grebe, photo by Isabel Luevano
As our animal care team and volunteers can tell you, Pied-billed Grebes are born feisty, hard to catch from the diving bird pools due to their quickness and quite willing to chomp on a finger if approached. (“They bite like little alligators,” one rehab technician tells us.) But we all admire their moxie.
We currently have several species of grebes on our San Francisco Bay center’s BirdCam, including this adult Pied-billed Grebe. This bird was found in Santa Cruz with puncture wounds consistent with a predator attack. The grebe is doing well in an outdoor diving bird pool.
Also in this pool are two Western Grebes, an Eared Grebe and a Horned Grebe. (The one non-grebe impostor? A Canvasback.) You can read more on this amazing family of aquatic birds at Cornell Lab of Ornithology.