Crested Grebe (southern)

Maori Name: Puteketeke

Podiceps cristatus

Also known as Australasian, Great or Southern                                                               

The Southern Crested Grebe is a freshwater diving bird. It is not common in New Zealand and numbers are continuing to decline. There are only about 300 birds left who remain here and they are protected.

It lives in the South Island only, with more than half the total number living in sub-alpine and alpine lakes east of the main ranges, while the rest are scattered on lowland lakes west of the Southern Alps. Most lakes only have a few birds, and this will often be just a pair which flies from lake to lake within the same region.  Known areas for sighting these birds are Lake Ianthe (just north of Hari Hari) and Lake Mapourika (just north of Franz Josef Glacier).  

In winter they will come together in loose flocks. Occasionally birds will move to winter on Lake Forsyth on Banks Peninsula.

The Southern Crested Grebe is duck-sized and about 1100 grams in weight, has a red iris, a fine sharp bill, and a slender neck and head with a distinctive black topknot-like crest and a prominent neck ruff, both of which get displayed ‘fluffed out’ during courtship. The neck and chest is silvery white while their upper back is blackish-brown. Their olive green legs are set well back on their bodies to enhance their diving skills, but it means they are awkward on land. For this reason, the birds rarely come ashore.

This bird will do most of its feeding by diving and can stay under the water for as long as 60 seconds. When it dives, it is able to propel itself faster than when it is swimming, and keeps the wings close to the body, using its legs. The grebe will spend most of the day feeding and will do so mostly underwater. The diet consists of fish and aquatic invertebrates, while they also eat feathers to help form eject-able pellets to stop sharp bones from entering and damaging the intestines.

In the breeding season, Southern Crested Grebes choose the large, clear lakes of glacial origin that have enough aquatic vegetation to use when building and anchoring the nest. Both sexes build the nest which will be attached to submerged branches often under willows in deeper water.

They will lay 1-7 long and oval eggs (pointed at both ends) between September and February with the main breeding time in December and January and both adults will do the incubation and feeding process. The chicks will stay around the nest until all are hatched. The young can swim at 2 days, and can dive at a week, but are dependent on their parents until about 11 weeks. Sometimes they can be seen riding on a parent’s back.