Grebe love

Alex had his interview at Shuttleworth this afternoon, but there was time beforehand to do some of those niggling chores like buying new printer ink, buying a replacement border fork (I snapped the old one while trying to dig up a rather large bramble!)and taking the dogs out.

We went over to Ferry Meadows for a change. I couldn't believe how strong the south-west wind was: there were sizeable waves on the largest lake,and once or twice I could scarcely walk forwards. Most of the wintering birds have gone now, although there are still a few Shoveler, but I spotted the first Sand Martins of the year, struggling to fly against the strong wind. The geese were getting a bit feisty with each other, and I was excited to see the courtship dance of a pair of Great Crested Grebes - together with a bit of aggression against a third one that was hanging around.

The BBC website's Nature's Top 40 has the courtship of Great Crested Grebe at No16:

The plight of the Great Crested Grebe was one of the main reasons that the RSPB was originally set up. Victorian egg collectors had taken their toll and the bird had been hunted to near extinction in the UK for 'grebe fur'. That's the skin and soft under-pelt of a grebe's breast feathers, which were used as fake fur. At one stage the birds were down to just over 40 pairs.

The Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus) has distinctive ornate plumes of feathers on its head in the summer. In winter the fancy plumage is lost and the head is white with a black cap and eye stripe. It is the largest of the grebe family. The head and neck feathers form a ruff during the breeding season.

The bird's courtship display involves a number of stages, with a pair meeting on the water, shaking their heads and dipping their necks. The display will culminate in a 'weed dance' where both dive underwater and collect weed in their beaks before rushing towards each other, low above the water's surface, then rising upright to meet face to face.

Alex's interview went really well and he's been offered a place on the Countryside Management course, as long as he passes his English GCSE. Apparently he spent quite a bit of time chatting to the tutor about moth trapping - and again he was the only one who went to his interview on his own. So now it's decision time....