I felt like I had just watched a prize fight from ringside seats!

When I first came across one my favourite little birds, it was resting nonchalantly among the marsh grass not too far from shore. I was excited to see it. I’m surprised I did see it; because it was pretty well hidden.

Pied-billed grebes are experts at hiding right in front of you. They tuck themselves up against the grass and stay perfectly still and blend right in with their surroundings. It helps that they are quite small and are pretty well camouflaged with a mixture of brown, beige and white feathers that don’t really stand out, especially against the fall colours.

The first time I saw a pied-billed grebe, I wasn’t really impressed. It seemed like a kind of plain looking little duck, but the more I saw of them, the more I began to like them. They are real cheeky little characters with a lot of spunk.

One of the first things I learned about them is that they are not a duck. They look like a duck and talk like a duck, but they do not have webbed feet, and one of the qualifications to be a duck is that you have to have webbed feet.

A pied-billed grebe watches from its hiding spot in the grass.

The pied-billed grebe has lobes on each side of its toes that act like paddles to assist it in swimming, both above and below the water. They apparently work very well because the grebe is quite agile and very fast in the water.

Grebes dive and swim underwater to catch fish and other aquatic species like frogs and crayfish. They have another unique ability in that they can submerge just like a submarine by trapping or expelling air from their feathers. They often use this technique to hide from predators or danger by submerging until just the top of their head is above the water.

I wasn’t optimistic about getting pictures when I first saw this grebe because I was in the wrong position against the sun and there was no way to get on the other side of him, but I figured it was worth waiting a bit to see what would happen.

I’m glad I did. Soon after I started watching him, he moved out of the grass and started diving for food. I thought it was diving for fish but soon learned it was catching crayfish.

The grebe has caught a large crayfish.

It caught a couple but between the grass and the sun it was hard to get shots. The good thing, though, was this grebe, unlike most that I have encountered, did not seem to care I was watching. It kept coming in quite close to shore and diving for crayfish. Then as it rose to the surface after a dive, pandemonium broke out!

Water was splashing everywhere and the grebe was extremely excited. It was all over the place in the battle of its life. It had brought up one of the biggest crayfish I have ever seen. It was an all-out battle. The crayfish’s claws were as big as the grebe’s beak.

At times, I didn’t know who was going to win. The battle went on and on for almost five minutes. In the end, the grebe did win … I think. It looked like he had subdued the crayfish … but then he let it go. I think he realized it was too big for him to eat anyway.

After its battle, the grebe rests and cleans itself up.

The grebe then went on with business. It circled a good part of the pond and caught a couple more crayfish of the normal sized variety and then cleaned itself up. As I finally caught my breath, the grebe was hunkering in to have a rest too. As I left, it was floating into sleep.

The pied-billed grebe floating off to sleep.

What an exciting afternoon it was watching this epic battle.

© Peterborough Examiner