Great crested grebes have now acquired their gorgeous spring headdress. They will not be simple black-and-white birds again until late autumn. They now have a large orange ruff with a black fringe, and a black crown with two black tufts like ears rising out of it. When they look straight at you they look very evil. However, this does not deter a pair of them from looking straight at each other in their courtship displays, which we shall soon be seeing. They face each other on the water with their long, white-fronted necks held up straight, and shake their heads violently so that their ruffs waggle. They are early breeders, and some of them may have eggs in their floating nest of weeds by the beginning of March.
Little grebes are also becoming more colourful, with chestnut cheeks and a yellow spot at the base of their beak on each side. They lurk on the water in the shelter of thin reedbeds, and their whinnying spring calls carry a long way across the lake.