Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/108

76 are at once raised again. A favourite suggestion that it is getting near nesting time is made by the male, who dives for submerged weed, and bringing up a strand waves it in front of his lady. Sometimes, but not often, the male approaches with the ear tufts drooping, and usually with depressed frill, but during the bill kissing, ear tufts are erected, frill fully expanded, so that it stands out, framing the curious Japanese face.

The nest of the grebe, on most of the Cheshire mares, is placed amongst reeds or other aquatic vegetation; it may be in a lily bed, or where vegetation is absent, as on some of the upland reservoirs, on a floating branch or drifted sticks and rubbish. It usually, though not invariably, is afloat, anchored by its surroundings, but it is so slight a structure, rotting weeds and rubbish, that it rocks on any ripple. A simple wet platform, it rises and falls according to the varying height of the water; though soaked and sodden, the eggs do not seem to suffer from their moist setting. When the bird leaves the nest it covers the eggs with a few bits of weed, and in a short time their chalky white surface absorbs the green of the nest and covering so that they become permanently stained with blotches of green and brown. Undoubtedly these nests, warmed by fermentation of the rotting weeds, produce considerable heat, and it has been suggested that this aids incubation; this may be true, but the birds do not leave them to their fate, but sit closely, both parents taking a share of incubating duties. When a sitting bird is disturbed, it rises on the nest and with a few rapid passes covers the eggs with some of the nesting material; then, in a second, it enters the water and dives.

When it first leaves the egg the tiny grebe is a beautiful little creature, striped with brown and white down, and with a small triangular patch of bare crimson skin on its head. One of its first efforts is to leave its sodden home