Thursday, January 19, 2006

Little Grebe - Big Butt

A pair of Little Grebe (or dabchicks)were posing conveniently in the little drain by the entry to the Peacock Tower at the LWC on sunday. Since everyone was traipsing up the tower to get a look at the fabulous Great Bittern that was showing in the reeds, the dabchicks were drawing lots of admiring glances at close range. Unfortunately from a photography point of view they spent a lot of time diving (as they always do) and when they weren't diving they seemed determined to show me a less than flattering angle:




3 comments:

Pam in Tucson said...

I love dabchicks - what a sweet picture. Have you observed/photographed the bitterns? I went to the LWC web site to learn more - wish LWC had been established when we lived in London. When I was in boarding school in Gloucestershire in the late 40's/early 50's, we used to go regularly to Slimbridge. Peter Scott would host us there.

Tai - I'm reading about the bottle-nosed whales in the Thames. Watched a BBC video of it. Whether it's determined to live or is actually dying, as some speculate, I hope it can return to its natural habitat to live or die peacefully.

tai haku said...

I've seen the bittern but no pics yet.

We went down to the river this evening looking for the whale but it disappeared just before we got there. They seem to think its made it east to Greenwich now which would mean it would almost certainly have had to come past us as we were walking up river to where it had been but we didn't see it. If its around tomorrow I'll try again but I'd rather it was back past the barrier.

T. Beth said...

What a funny photo! I don't think that I've ever seen a grebe from that angle before. :-)