Great Crested Grebe
Podiceps cristatus
Great Crested Grebe · Dungeness · 20 December 2025
A Great Crested Grebe riding low in the water at Dungeness in December, the way grebes always do. It is the grebe of lakes and gravel pits across Europe and Asia, and the flooded pits of the Kent coast hold them all year.
Chestnut-and-black head plumes and a dagger-straight pink bill. The legs are set so far back on the body that they are superb divers but nearly helpless walking on land, to the point that some species barely leave the water at all outside the breeding season. This is the bird the RSPB was founded to save, when its plumes were fashionable on hats.
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