Cuddlin'

This is almost what you might be thinking it is - but not quite. The upper bird here is the female of this pair - smaller and slighter, and with slightly different markings, than the male beneath her. About forty minutes earlier I'd photographed the same scene in reverse - she lying down, and he standing on her back. So, it's courtship, but not consummation.

Spending time with the Kemerton Lake grebes yesterday reminded me that it was three weeks since I was last at Compton Verney, and I thought it was therefore high time I made another trip to check what was going on at the lake there. So this afternoon I zoomed over, in bright sunshine but with the car giving me occasional ice warnings, and at one point a little flurry of snow drifting down as I drove under the edge of a cloud.

As soon as I reached the bridge I saw that the younger pair of great crested grebes was back together on the north part of the lake, and courting - though they don't yet seem to be building a nest. There was no sign of the older pair from the south lake, which I last saw two years ago, and which at that time didn't seem to be intending to breed. However I'm told that last year a breeding pair did turn up at Walton Hall, just a couple of miles away, and it's possible that these were the older Compton Verney pair trying out a new home; I will have to call in there soon, and take a look. In any case, they were definitely not on Compton Verney's south lake today, because towards the end of the afternoon this pair swam under the bridge and explored that territory for a while, and the only bird that took exception to this incursion was a coot, which chased them around for a few seconds before turning its ire back onto one of its own kind.

After a while the male returned to his own section of the lake and called the female, who was a little tardy but eventually caught up with him. He immediately went to the reed bed, jumped up onto the vegetation, and began displaying to her, arching his neck over and bending his head down, and then prostrating himself along the flattened reeds. She swam around him for a few seconds, raising her crest admiringly and chuckling at him, then went to his rear end and pulled out a few of his down feathers. Even knowing what was about to happen next, I still wasn't quite fast enough to catch the instant when she jumped up on his back. She stayed in this position for a few seconds, apparently wittering sweet nothings in his ear while he lay quite still, and then she jumped down (pretty much landing on his head) and swam away looking rather pleased with herself. The male righted himself, but stayed in the reeds for a little while longer before rejoining her out on the lake.

It's not the famous weed dance (which I will catch one day), but to me it's still fascinating courtship behaviour. I assume that part of the ritual allows each half of the pair to demonstrate to the other that they will take nesting and brooding seriously, but I don't know what the significance is of each allowing the other to mount them in this way. Perhaps it shows that they're an equal partnership in this breeding malarkey, or maybe it just demonstrates trust, but whatever its significance, I love to to see it.