perfect synchrony
by Douglas J. Lanzo
of two soulmates
the mating dance of grebes
Grebes embody soulful love, beauty and grace with their elaborate courtship dances. Endowed with striking eyes, chestnut-colored ruffs, regal black crests, and slender flowing necks, great-crested grebes take your breath away with an enchanting courtship dance.
As synchronized as a scene from the Nutcracker Suite ballet, they dip their heads underwater in synchronous movement before shaking them side to side as soon as they resurface as a pair. Their theatrical paired head-bobs, dips and weaves culminate in a spectacular, coordinated twenty-step-per-second dash across the surface of the lake with upright necks, arched backs and wings spread, dignified and adorable at the same time.
Their larger cousins, Western and Clark grebes, are the largest vertebrates on earth with the capability to walk, or shall we say, run, on water!
Further information:
To learn more about this remarkable and entrancing behavior, check out Boyd Huppert’s Land of 10,000 Stories video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMT9ym3Ug3I&t=153s or enjoy numerous BBC nature videos, including BBC Life (Birds) featuring Clark’s Grebes performing rushing dances on Oregon lakes, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and Iolo’s Secret Life of Birds (BBC One) starring Great Crested Grebes in full courtship displays.
For online reading enjoy ‘All About Birds’ by Cornell Lab of Ornithology at https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Western_Grebe/lifehistory#behavior which features an informative “Life History” page describing the awe-spiring rushing ceremony and touchingly humorous weeds ceremony of the Western Grebe.
Author bio:
Doug is an award-winning American author and poet of over 560 internationally published poems whose debut novel The Year of the Bear won the Ames Award for YA Books and whose second book I Have Lived was named American Book Fest Novella of the Year. His Author’s website is www.douglaslanzo.com.