Australasian Crested Grebe (Kāmana)
Crested grebes were once found throughout the North and South island, however now they are only found in the lowland lakes of Canterbury, Otago, Fiordland, Marlborough and Westland.
The grebe’s stylish hairdo is known as tiki-tiki in Maori which translates as top knot. A tiki-tiki is only worn by high ranking men, so this is great praise for the grebe. Māori call the birds kāmana, and regard them as taonga or treasure.
Most of them are found in Lake Heron and Lake Hayes. It is thought that there are only 300 – 400 birds left in New Zealand, however pest control is helping these birds to bump up their numbers.
The Crested Grebe is one of our most romantic birds. It performs an elaborate mating dance before it settles down with its partner.
At the height of the display, the birds mirror each other. They can be found dancing breast to breast, bill to bill whilst they croon and gurgle.
Romance, it seems, runs in the family because their cousins – flamingos – also perform an elaborate courtship dance.
Unlike flamingos however they are not such good walkers – their legs are set at the back of their body, which makes them much better swimmers. They are rarely seen on dry land.
Grebes nest on a floating island of weeds that is attached to underwater plants so it doesn’t float away
When they have babies, they fill the nest with 1-7 eggs. Over time the white eggs brown because the parents cover the eggs with bits of plants and leaves when they go to find food.
After they hatch from the eggs baby grebes will ride around on their parents back.What a life!
The parents feed their chicks on fish, water weeds and insects as well as something very strange – their old feathers.
Why? Well it is thought that this helps digestion and enables those sharp fish bones to go down their gobs.
