How Grebes Build Floating Nests That Keep Their Eggs High and Dry

Pied-billed Grebe. Photo: Steve Cronin/Audubon Photography Awards. This audio story is brought to you by BirdNote, a partner of The National Audubon Society. BirdNote episodes air daily on public radio stations nationwide…

The call of this water bird, the Pied-billed Grebe, is unusual isn’t it! Their nests are unusual too – little platforms of plant material that float on water, hidden behind vegetation. We’re with Martin Muller, an expert who loves unraveling the mysteries of Pied-billed Grebes: “Well, there’s the nest…there it is! We didn’t even see it because we were standing on the wrong side of the cattails, so if we step back a little bit…without the bird seeing…us directly staring at it, it’ll carry on.”

Audio program: “This is BirdNote”:

The birds are diving for decaying plant material, picking it up from the bottom of the lake, piling it up until it forms a floating mass. “Now this will gradually sink so they keep adding on to it… and when the first egg is laid, it can be laid in a puddle of water – it will be that flimsy a structure – and then what they do is they add on more plant material on the […]

Full transcript & credits at Audubon.org: How Grebes Build Floating Nests That Keep Their Eggs High and Dry