The first grebe I ever learned about was the red-necked grebe. There are a lot of them at a large stormwater pond in my hometown, and when my husband and I were first dating, he lived near there, and we used to go for walks by the pond quite often. Most of the grebes I have seen are fairly small--that's what we have in north-central Alberta, and further south toward Calgary, you get bigger grebes: Clark's grebes. I haven't seen any of those myself--since I started birding, I haven't had a chance to really do a proper birding trip to the Calgary area, but there are some beautiful places for birding there, so one day after we return, I will make such a trip. Meanwhile, I have learned that most grebes have a similar look to them, a certain shape of neck and beak and certain mannerisms that seem to make them relatively easy to identify. And their babies tend to look really similar, too. So when I saw these birds at Battersea Park, I knew right away that they were some type of grebe, and I learned that they are great crested grebes. When you click on the hyperlink, you'll notice that the grebes in my photo do not match the main photo presented on the website, but click the arrow to see the next illustration in the image slideshow, and you'll see that this pair are in winter plumage. Males and females tend to look the same in all grebes I have seen, and I think that is true for summer or winter plumage. These grebes look like they might even be juveniles rather than sporting winter plumage. The streaky heads is generally an indicator of youth--they are really streaky as grebettes (grebelings? not sure what the babies are called!), and the streaks disappear over time. I can't wait to view these in the summer and see their crests out! This was the only decent photo I could get of them for now--they really got overexposed with the lighting that day, and I don't have a professional camera to fix those issues, but at least for now, this is a good start, and always an exciting thing to see a new species, even if you can't get a good photo of it.
On a side note, if you're not familiar with what that means, the difference between summer and winter plumage, it doesn't just refer to the seasons but also to when they mate. They essentially become more attractive in the summer during mating season! Mallard ducks seem to be the most surprising to me with their summer and winter plumage. Their winter plumage makes them look like other females and then they develop that beautiful teal coloured head for the summer. I don't know if that actually happens here in the UK, though, as I've seen mallards all over here where the drakes are still sporting their summer plumage, so I have yet to learn what that means.
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