Birds of Central Oklahoma

All birds Grebes

Pied-billed Grebe, breeding
Breeding Photo by Dori. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Pied-billed Grebe

Podilymbus podiceps

Here September to April.

Recorded by Paul Marvin. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, via xeno-canto, trimmed and volume evened out.

Look for

  1. A small swimmer with a short neck and a thick bill.
  2. In winter, the bill is plain and pale. When it's time to nest, the bill turns white with a black ring around it.
  3. Its feathers are brown, with a rusty look in winter. Males and females look alike.

A little about it

Grebes are winter birds here. You can find them from September to April, and November has the most. In summer they're hard to find.

A grebe dives from the top of the water to hunt. It kicks with its feet to swim. It eats water bugs, small fish, leeches, frogs, and tadpoles.

Grebes like to be alone. They're almost never in a flock. If one gets scared, it can sink slowly until only its head is above the water. You'll hardly ever see one fly.

The nest is a pile of wet plants that floats on the water. Mom and dad build it together. She lays 4 to 7 eggs. The babies can swim soon after they hatch. They often ride on a parent's back, and the parent may even swim underwater with them on board!

Fun fact

Grebes swallow lots of feathers. The parents even feed feathers to their babies.

When it's here

Taller bars mean more sightings. Most often seen in November.

More winter birds

How big

SparrowRobinCrowGoose

12 to 15 inches. Bigger than a robin, but smaller than a crow.

Where to look

Ponds and lakes, most of all marshy ponds with lots of plants in the water. Look for one swimming by itself.

  • On or by water

People have spotted it at Lake Hefner, Lake Stanley Draper, Lake Overholser.

Could it be something else?

  • American Coot

    Another small, dark swimmer with a thick, pale bill. A coot is dark gray with a white bill, and it likes to be in a flock. A grebe is brown and is most often alone.

  • Bufflehead

    The female Bufflehead is a small diver too. She has a white spot on each side of her gray head. A grebe has no white spot.

More photos

Pied-billed Grebe, winter
Winter Photo by Polinova. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Where these facts come from