Crested beauties

I was missing doing my bird posts! So given a little of free time and a relaxed free theme in this week's SMAP, time to share some clicks of a species I'm very fond of.

^{Great crested grebe - Podiceps cristatus}

Crested grebes are stunning aquatic birds. There are several grebe species, but the head plummage of these guys sets them apart.

These are big grebes, and although I'm fortunate enough to have them in Portugal, these ones were spoted in an urban park in Tirana, in one of this year's vacations. There were a ton of them there, among other species!
Grebes dive to feed, so it's common to see them dive and disappear for a while: the challenge is to stay scouting to see where do they come up again. And also snap some clicks before this happens...

... a common photo when you're photographing diving species! :)

Fortunately for me, there were plenty of opportunities to photograph them, as they were calmly swimming around the lake, approaching the margins every now and then.

As this was in the summertime, the head colours and the crest were not as stunning as during the breeding season, when the colours are even brigher. Males and females share the same colours, so it's hard to tell them apart unless the size difference is noticeable. Juveniles on the other hand, are easy to spot, because they are striped and lack the characteristic crest.

Not that easy to see the head and neck pattern here given we were approaching the golden hour, but the lack of crest is simple to spot; the swimming elegance starts at an early age, nevertheless.

They're beautiful even when they decide to turn their back on the camera and swim to the sunset... at least this one still allowed a profile pose!

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