Black-necked Grebes, Dix Pit

On 6th March 2002 I found a flock of 5 Black-necked Grebes a Dix Pit, one of my first noteworthy self-found birds in the county. A photo of that flock, by George Reszeter, was published in Birdwatching magazine. Despite the caption on the photo, I don’t think it is too unusual it is to see small groups of these grebes, as recently a party of 5 have spent the last couple of months at Sonning Eye  gravel pits.

Black-necked Grebes appear annually in Oxfordshire, often in small numbers in early spring, as they move to their breeding grounds on pools in northern England. I thought of the flock that I found in 2002 as I headed out to Dix Pit this morning, 16 years and one day later. It was a nice moment then, when scanning from one end of the pit, I picked out 2 Black-necked Grebes on the far side. I worked my way around the gravel pit to get closer, the light was better and the birds showed nicely. These birds were more in winter plumage than summer. Their heads and necks are taking on the black of their breeding plumage, but they had not yet grown their fabulous golden ear tufts. Nevertheless, seeing the red eye is always a treat:

Having found a single, very distant, Black-necked Grebe on Monday at Henley Road gravel pits, it was good to get much better views of these beautiful grebes:

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