Romeo and the Lonely Girl

I spotted this pair of Crested Grebes dancing away together (mimicking each other's movements) and spent some time watching them.  The Lonely Girl would break off after a while and go off to the reeds where she was building a little platform.  After a while young Romeo would come over to see how she was getting on and would add some reeds or pond weed to the platform as well. 

Eventually, the Lonely Girl got out of the water onto the nest and lay on top invitingly, trying to look coy.  Romeo clearly wasn't too sure what to make of this,  looking uncertainly at the nethers thus presented to him.  He didn't seem to be in any great hurry to make any big commitment, and eventually would move away slightly.

Poor old Lonely Girl would get back into the water and, after a while, would rejoin him, whereupon they would again start to dance together, at which stage he looked really keen again, and would add his own share of sticks to the nest.  This pattern repeated 3 times while I was watching and may have been going on a bit longer than that.

The extra was taken during the last time she tried to entice him back to her place.  You can see poor old Romeo looking the very picture of every reluctant bridegroom that ever graced a saucy seaside postcard.  When he didn't get on board with the whole "lets start a family" process she gave up on him, and swam off in search of a less reluctant mate.  

Romeo didn't seem that worried by her departure.