A Great Crested Grebe in Russia - Observation of the Week 2018-12-04

This Great Crested Grebe, seen in Russia by zveroboy57, is our Observation of the Week!

As iNaturalist users have continued to fill in the map with their observations, one of the most conspicuous empty spaces has been Russia and Central Asia. True, Russia is an enormous country with vast wild expanses where few people live, but the overall observation levels for Russia have been pretty low until recently. We started seeing an increase in late 2017 and then a huge spike over the past month or two. This chart of observations in Russia really says it all:

Much of this increase is due to Russian wildlife photographers who have started to share their archive of fantastic photos with the iNaturalist community, and one of those photographers is Alexander, who photographed the Great Crested Grebe you see above.

Great Crested Grebes range through much of Eurasia, as well as parts of northern Africa and Australia, and are large (for a grebe), with a wingspan of 59–73 cm (23–29 in). In the summer both males and females are resplendent in their breeding plumage and like many other grebes they participate in an elaborate courtship pas-de-deux, mirroring each others’ motions and displaying their crests. They are excellent divers and hunt for fish and other underwater prey. These grebes were hunted almost to extinction in the United Kingdom, as their head feathers were highly sought after.

Alexander (above, in wildlife photography mode) says that he has been “fond of nature from childhood,” and has recently become interested in wildlife photography. Of the Great Crest Grebes, he says “[they] are not uncommon, but they are very cautious and it is not easy to photograph them.” He recently discovered iNaturalist via Facebook and now uses it “to show my photos to the whole world.”

- by Tony Iwane

- Here are the most-faved iNaturalist observations from Russia!

- By the way, Great Crested Grebe chicks are pretty adorable.

- One of the more amazing feeds on Twitter is from Russian deep sea fisherman Roman Fedortsov, who shares photos of the awesome creatures he finds.

Posted on August 28, 2020 01:53 PM by hannahsun99