No. 48 on our checklistBlack-necked Grebe (Podiceps nigricollis)

In spring the Black-necked Grebe is one of the most elegant birds on the lakes of the Danube Delta: jet black head and neck, a fan of golden feathers behind each eye, chestnut flanks and eyes of an almost unreal red. It is a small diving bird, smaller than a Coot, that spends almost its whole life on the water. Probably the most numerous grebe in the world, it is still a bird many visitors have never seen in full breeding dress.

When to see it in the Danube Delta and Dobrogea

1. JanModerate
2. FebModerate
3. MarModerate
4. AprModerate
5. MayModerate
6. JunModerate
7. JulModerate
8. AugModerate
9. SepModerate
10. OctModerate
11. NovModerate
12. DecModerate

Status here

All year.

IUCN Red List

Least Concern

Our checklist

No. 48 of 385 · see the full checklist

How to recognise it

From April to August the adults are unmistakable. The head, neck and back are black, the flanks rich chestnut, and behind the eye spreads a loose fan of golden yellow plumes. The bill is thin, black and slightly upturned, and the forehead rises steeply, giving the head a peaked, triangular look. The eye is bright red.

In winter it turns black and white: dark cap and back, white throat and breast, grey flanks, and the same red eye. The Horned Grebe looks similar at this season, but the Black-necked Grebe has a dusky neck, black reaching below the eye onto the cheek, and that upturned bill. Both are much smaller than the Great Crested Grebe, the common large grebe of the Danube Delta.

Colonies, floating nests and chicks on the back

Black-necked Grebes are sociable birds. They usually nest in colonies, often in the middle of Black-headed Gull colonies, where the noisy, aggressive gulls keep crows and marsh harriers away. Each pair builds a floating nest of wet water plants, anchored to stems in shallow water. The female lays three or four eggs, and both parents incubate for about three weeks.

For their first days the striped chicks ride on their parents’ backs, tucked under the wings, while the adults dive for food. Then the parents divide the brood between them, and the young become independent in a few weeks. The grebes feed mainly on insects and their larvae, with small crustaceans, molluscs, tadpoles and some small fish.

After breeding they do something unusual: they shed all their flight feathers at once and cannot fly for five or six weeks, gathering on large lakes to fatten up. Their migrations are made at night, so they disappear from one lake and appear on another without anyone seeing them travel.

Where to see it in the Danube Delta

Black-necked Grebes are present in the Danube Delta and Dobrogea in every month, but the season decides what you see. From late April to June the adults are in full breeding plumage on the quieter lakes of the Danube Delta, especially where gulls nest, and on the fish ponds and lagoons around it. This is the time for photographs, from a slow boat that stays at a distance from the colony. In winter they move to open, unfrozen water: the large lagoons and the coastal lakes of Dobrogea, sometimes the sea itself.

Our guides know which lakes hold breeding pairs each year. You can look for them on a small group birdwatching tour in the Danube Delta, or photograph them in spring on a wildlife photo tour from Mila 23.

Interesting facts

• A bird that hardly flies. Studies of the North American population, where the species is called the Eared Grebe, showed that some birds are unable to fly for up to ten months of the year, longer than almost any other flying bird.
• It rebuilds its own body. Before migration the flight muscles grow and the stomach and gut shrink; on the lakes where it fattens up, the opposite happens. The same bird can almost double its weight and then lose it again within weeks.
• It eats its own feathers. Like all grebes, it swallows its own feathers and feeds them to its chicks. They form a soft ball in the stomach that is thought to protect it from sharp prey remains.

Status and threats

With a world population estimated at around four million birds, the Black-necked Grebe is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN. Locally it depends on calm, shallow, clean water with floating vegetation, and on the gull colonies that shelter it. Drainage, pollution of lakes, and disturbance of breeding colonies by boats in May and June are the real risks in the Danube Delta. A boat that pushes into a colony can leave eggs exposed long enough to lose them, which is why our boats stop well before.