Great Crested Grebes

I've been sorting through some of the many images of birds I've photographed so far this spring and one species I haven't really given much attention to on this blog is the very beautiful Great Crested Grebe.

I actually spent many hours in April and early May at a couple of local sites trying to capture the elusive 'weed dance' but didn't have any luck.
I did however have some success capturing this courtship dance minus the weed and it is none the less a very beautiful sight.

The Great Crested Grebe is a stunning bird and normally very wary of humans, but now and again they let their guard down and if you sit still and quiet, you may be lucky enough to view them at close quarters...
Unlike most fairly common water birds there is not much chance of enticing these birds with bread all any other food goodies, they are most certainly fish lovers and are very good at diving for them...

Finally the courting...

I focused mainly on one pair of birds at Poynton Pool, because this site is fairly photo-friendly and the lake is not as wide as the other site (Etherow Park).

Even so, these Grebes seem to like to do their courting in private and on many occasions they would swim off to the least accessible reaches of the pool and their displays were often obscured by trees and other obstacles.

Other times they would be smack bang in the middle of the pool and too far away for a decent shot no matter where I positioned myself.

A very frustrating business, but I did mange to get fairly close (although not as close as I'd have liked) the one time...